Religion Dispatches
…led by spokesperson Lucien Greaves, have been working like fiends with campaigns from Tallahassee to Detroit to Cambridge. Several other Satanic groups have also shown increased activity—apparently jealous of Greaves and the media attention he’s received. For most, the year of Satanism has been either a sign of the apocalypse or a source of hilarious news items. But Greaves says their goal is to change the “socio-political dialogue.” For scholars…
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…holics are in their own sort of hell over the rise of Trump. His election raises questions about how Catholics should respond personally and politically. One source of dismay for some Catholics is that so many of their number broke decisively toward Trump and were critical to his victory in the Rust Belt swing states. “The Catholic vote went for Trump and many Catholics joined the non-voting defectors. That’s a scandal that calls into question the…
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March 25th is the Feast of the Annunciation, the celebration of the day that the Angel Gabriel is said to have appeared to the Virgin Mary to announce that she would bear Christ. It is a date of great significance to Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians, one of the major feasts focused upon the Virgin Mary. The Vatican has announced that this year on the Feast of the Annunciation the Pope will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immac…
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…recent moves to transform himself into a religious leader as well as entertainer and “educator” has been his intense attacks on President Obama’s theology of salvation, which he has called “evil” and “satanic.” The nature of salvation is not typically the topic of choice for political pundits. But Beck has latched onto it with a fury because he insists that President Obama’s liberation theology-influenced view of salvation is not only unchristian…
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…egal reasons, have already turned themselves in to police. The case is certainly odd. 58-year-old Rabbi Kranczer, of Midwood, has 14 children and the abuse, according to the New York City Police Department, has been limited to incidents within the rabbi’s family. But the hunt for Kranczer comes at a time when federal agencies are taking a more proactive approach to prosecuting abuse in the Orthodox community. In Brooklyn last year, about 25 Orthod…
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…liday would translate from a regional African American celebration into a mainstream American federal holiday. More importantly I was interested in how Black folks, White folks and others would navigate the issues of race and slavery that reside at the center of the Juneteenth holiday. One of the most comical aspects to what I have come to call the ‘Juneteenth conundrum’ is who is greeted by whom? In 2021, while at a summer solstice festival that…
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…who the true God is?” Alber Saber Ayad’s question was answered by the Egyptian government last week when the 27-year-old computer science student was convicted for “contempt of religion” in Cairo. Saber was taken into custody on September 13 by the police after an enraged mob stormed his house, beating him and threatening his mother, a Coptic Christian. Saber was rumored to be circulating the Innocence of Muslims film trailer on his Facebook page….
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…religious organizations, including Catholic hospitals and religiously-affiliated colleges, have objected to offering birth control services through their insurance plans. The narrow exemption in the original rules, which were not broad enough to cover Catholic schools like Notre Dame, is undergoing a reevaluation. However, in addition to objections by religious non-profits, more than a dozen for-profit small businesses have filed lawsuits objectin…
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In recent weeks, watching evangelical white preachers, pastors, and Christian schools post black squares on varying social media platforms as a sign of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement has been a slap in the face—especially for me as a Black woman. During my childhood and early adolescent years, I had the misfortune of attending several evangelical white Christian schools. As I neared the 8th grade, the last school where I was enro…
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…t be in store for audiences on the night of music awards shows, one can reliably bet that at least one acceptance speech will start with, “First of all, I want to thank God.” So when it came time for Kendrick Lamar to accept the 2016 Grammy for Best Rap Album, it was no surprise that he began, “First off, all glory to God, that’s for sure.” This tradition has often been fodder for comedians remarking that these are empty gestures and that, of all…
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