Religion Dispatches
…am a life…” and “I want to be a doctor,” and even “I want to end global warming.” Particularly, the noting of global warming is significant in pulling apart these two distinct cultures that make up this movement as the wing of it tied to Sarah Palin still does not even believe in global warming. And Palin and the political leaders present were more clearly interested in focusing on politics, creating even more tension . . . a point to which I’ll…
Read More…d. For Rushdoony, Barton, and apparently Huckabee, history is not the academic discipline most of us have in mind when we use the term: the effort to assemble evidence from the past to understand events, their context, and change over time. In fact, Jon Stewart nailed it when he argued that Barton “doesn’t seem like a historian, he seems seem almost like a theologian whose thrust is ‘I want this country to be Christian and go by the Bible.’” The “…
Read More…ice, where as many as 1,000 visitors are invited to meet him. I apparently missed the seminary class that taught pastors not to get “sidetracked in controversy.” Instead, my classes taught me that it was theologian Karl Barth that counseled pastors to use both the Bible and the newspaper in their preaching, but Osteen will have none of that. Anything that might get in the way of a happy story, or a story about how God wants you to be happy and be…
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…nger. Even when I agree with his statements about eradicating poverty, becoming friends with our enemies, and the like, I have scruples about giving the new pope too much praise—as if other people have not said the same things and more for eons. The papacy is the ultimate bully pulpit, but it works both ways—on things that are progressive and things that are conservative. It is risky to embrace papal remarks when one agrees, only to live long enou…
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…urned away from the door of the historic Mormon Tabernacle with tears streaming down their cheeks. A few minutes before the session’s scheduled six o’clock start, maintenance crews parked a garbage truck between the line of waiting women and the Tabernacle door. “I thought it was strange to have a truck weaving in and out of the traffic on Temple Square during Conference,” said Ordain Women participant Heather Olsen Beal of Nacogdoches, Texas. W…
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…d effective way. Interactivity was still relatively limited, and our media mimicked our religion: much of it was still top-down, though change hung in the air. But it’s Benedict who has seen unprecedented change in communications technology—enough to make anyone wish for retirement. He’s observed the massive development of YouTube and Google, the ubiquity of smart phones and mobile devices, and the rise of Facebook and Twitter, which boast nearly…
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…ables (The Untouchables), which came out almost a year ago and sold twenty million tickets in France (and nearly as many abroad). Intouchables is a funny and moving comedy, but as politically correct a story as you’ll find: a black young man bordering on delinquency is hired by a tetraplegic wealthy man to be his assistant-nurse-chauffeur. They have a ball together doing crazy—and sometimes nasty—things, and save each other from an apparently inex…
Read More…and compared the Bible with the Koran and continue to be amazed with the similiarities that I never knew existed most my life. I was the one in the crowd that asked you about the your story and experience in Detroit [see: Jesus, Carpetbomb My Heart –ed]. I’ve quoted you below: In this time of reconstructing the way our world works, a polarizing and exclusive religious vision is not particularly relevant. America is also inescapably and increasingl…
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…o-Nazis arrived. Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza: The nazi groups just kept coming and coming. This is an exaggeration, but it felt like there were a million nazis, to like, 100 counter-protestors. That’s an exaggeration, but I’m just saying, that the number of nazis compared to counter-protestors was unreal. I’m just like, where in the hell did all these people come from? They took over the fucking city. So as things were heating up, we saw riot gea…
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…e true church of Christ, and especially the “plan of salvation” and its promise that “families are forever.” The missionary program certainly no longer encourages Latter-day Saints to gather in Salt Lake City. I could go on. Can’t Broadway afford fact-checkers? Most egregiously, the play mischaracterizes Mormon theology. The elaborate showstopper in Act II, “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream,” shows Elder Price imagining the consequences of being a bad mis…
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