Religion Dispatches
…d between atheists and religious communities. Of course, there are still a number of people who are, if not entirely resistant to the ideas in the book, at least deeply suspicious about or don’t see much value in them. One thing I find valuable about Faitheist is that it moves atheism away from the kind of polemic that ends up focusing on truth claims in a very literal way and so mirrors the religious fundamentalisms it would like to dismantle. A…
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…to a fight in a bar, or behaves inappropriately with women, or commits any number of minor sins which ordinary people get away with every day—he lets down not only himself and his family, but his faith community and the Asian-American (and to some extent Asian) community as a whole, which currently views him as a hero. Can you imagine the pressure? And yet, so far at least, neither Tebow nor Lin has fallen. No crashed cars at three a.m., no extram…
Read More…like most he interviewed, did not really understand what a Social Security number was. He certainly wasn’t trying to steal someone else’s credit. He was supporting his children, wife, mother and sister. When interviewed, he wept. The day after the arrests, Postville was in chaos. Families took refuge at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church. A third of the elementary and middle-school children were absent from school, traumatizing both immigrant children…
Read More…tside the church will bring their children to Sabbath school and a growing number of openly gay students will attend Adventist academies and colleges. Like the SCC’s black members in the 1960s, gay Adventists will be able to hold their faith community legally accountable for any discriminatory responses. And, as was the case with segregation, the church will find itself once again in a losing battle against social change unless it learns from its…
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…onoff attended classes alongside students from other synagogues around the city, where the rabbi lead informal discussion sessions based each week on a different subject—a ritual’s details, the laws of keeping kosher, the celebration of the High Holy Days. Shoulson also had Aronoff attend classes at a local Jewish college, and had Aronoff submit to a conversion ceremony in order to be allowed to enroll. “I know who you are,” he told Aronoff, “but…
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…say about Jon Meacham’s Newsweek piece on the fairly sharp fall-off in the number of Americans self-identifying as Christian (in the newly-released ARIS survey), this bloghead initially demurred. I mean, the amiable and well-informed Meacham said what I would have said: on balance, it’s a good thing that the various and dangerous forms of grievance associated with “Christian nation” thinking should now recede. It’s a good thing that more have come…
Read More…pt to explain why American culture is “exceptional”—exceptional in its toxicity, that is. A growing number of truth telling historians are eager to help us discover these deeper roots if we are willing to listen. Here I’m thinking mainly of scholars like Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Gerald Horne who focus on the connections between settler colonialism, white supremacy, and an unparalleled level of gun violence. To me the question that grows more acute…
Read More…f methods and instruments such as the mass media and seminars, involving a number of celebrated figures and other possible means. The objective is to promote and solidify homosexuality. Al-Azhar, in a previous statement, reiterated that the amoral and satanic propaganda launched by these various, vicious, parties has the purpose of destroying the human moral order respected by all religions and schools, because this moral order is in line with hum…
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…tion on the bill, I was greeted by a few orange-wearing folk. They were outnumbered by anti-abortion activists, wearing blue, and I felt a little intimidated—so much that I texted a friend for moral support. Once I had registered, I walked back through the main hall to a table set up for those opposed to the bill. A woman stationed there greeted me, “What is up with the blue people?” she asked. “It’s like we’re contagious. Have you noticed how the…
Read More…king at 38% in mid-2008 during Obama’s presidential election campaign, the number of Americans describing the Democratic Party as friendly toward religion returned in mid-2009 to levels similar to those seen in 2005 through 2007. About one-in-five say Democrats are unfriendly toward religion (22%), up from 15% who felt that way last year but about the same as in surveys conducted in 2005 and 2006. Views of the Democrats’ stance toward religion hav…
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