Religion Dispatches
…to become better organized as a political force, even as they increase in number. The major impediment to that kind of organization is the fact that it is very difficult for secularists to conceive of themselves in tribal terms. Most tribes, whether of nations or ethnicities or sports fandom, can easily demarcate their membership—it’s the people who look like us, or talk like us, or dress like us. Tribes organized around religious belief have rit…
Read More…religion, is really the plague on religion coverage in general. Over these last years, as the religious right has risen in power, as it attempts to actually create a monolithic understanding of Christianity, Christians have fought back. We now know that not all Evangelicals believe in the “Gospel of Gun.” Some care about helping the poor and protecting the environment. More American Jews are coming out to say that being pro-Jewish doesn’t automati…
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…ken a much more adversarial stance to LGBT acceptance. However, increasing numbers of evangelical churches are accepting LGBT individuals as members. This development is not without its opponents, however. Many evangelical organizations—most significantly colleges, universities and seminaries—are mobilizing to retain their “religious right” to discriminate against LGBT individuals. More than 30 evangelical higher education institutions have petiti…
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…mple, 86% of White evangelicals said there are only two genders, with that number rising to 92% in 2023. The report also states, “Among White Christian groups, White evangelical Protestants (82%) and Latter-day Saints (72%) are much more likely than White Catholics (51%) and White mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (50%) to strongly feel there are only two genders.” None of this is particularly surprising, but what I do find both surprising and…
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…hristians, but only half or so of those are regular practitioners, and the numbers continue to decline. Meanwhile, the nation as a whole has seen a significant shift to the left by party affiliation if not by ideological descriptor. Only a determined minority of social conservatives continues to move to the right. It’s easy to get lost in the fog of math, but the underlying point here should be clear: not everyone is a Christian, and nowhere near…
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…conveniently skips over lyrics referring to holy water, miracles, and everlasting life, which defy categorizations like “innocent piety.” The Pitchfork review of the album is more flattering but describes it lyrically as “a world of cannibalism, elastic sexuality and freaks of nature” rather than recognizing those elements as sacramental, devotional, and transfigured. Neither review makes mention of whole, explicit verses like, “And when we break…
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…slave populations, colonialists imposed embargoes on Haiti, some of which lasted well into the nineteenth century. The very success of the revolution produced a punishment by all surrounding colonies and territories worse and longer-lasting than the US embargo against Cuba. The unilateral and widespread embargo thwarted recovery and development for close to a century. Prior to the revolt French-ruled Saint-Domingue-now-Haiti was stripped of its n…
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…her to acknowledge Robertson’s latest provocation. It bores me, and I feel cheapened even to think about it as I worry about one of my students who has not yet returned from a mission trip to Haiti. Still I could not resist clicking on a list of Robertson’s top ten greatest gaffes that I found in the blogosphere. It was amusing to ponder the rankings. Does Robertson’s feat of leg-pressing 2000 pounds (thanks to the diet shakes he was selling) dese…
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