Religion Dispatches
…implicit assertion that he represents all Christian voters in the United States. But can he or any candidate make a legitimate claim to that effect? That is, does the math add up? If it does, can any candidate therefore make a legitimate claim to speak for “real Americans”? And most of all: if they can, what do they intend to do with that legitimacy?…
Read More…ious and/or filthy rich) and (b) slowly but surely bringing production, education, food, and health care under the complete control and regulation of the federal government. Noebel goes on to claim that “The legislators involved in this Socialistic undertaking belong to one or more radical House organizations,” including the Progressive Democrats of America, the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, as well as the De…
Read More…es (who these days in Florida seem to all be tea partiers) seem united behind Rubio, with his tea party version of Constitutionalism and his view of America as a Christian nation. I wrote about Rubio’s endorsement by David Barton here. Though Constitution Party Candidate Bernie DeCastro argues that Rubio is a liberal, he hasn’t been able to get much traction. The only real division on the Republican side seems to be over whether they want Rubio in…
Read More…ople whose lives had been destroyed by it. Rather, she asked God to continue to bestow his bountiful blessings on the children and their families. Later, I learned that filmed near here was The Truman Show, a movie in which the protagonist (played by Jim Carrey) spends his life not realizing that everything around him is just a carefully crafted illusion and that his entire world exists in a bubble visible from outer space. Truman only learns abou…
Read More…. Knestout, of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC, distributed at masses on Palm (now called Passion) Sunday. He writes, “A petition drive and referendum campaign is being lead [sic] by the Maryland Marriage Alliance, a statewide coalition of faith-based organizations and others, including the Catholic Church in Maryland.” Nowhere does he mention same-sex marriage, lesbian and gay people, same-sex couples, our children, or anything about us. We hav…
Read More…is specifically a woman’s thing? It is equally necessary for women to explicate certain passages because women alone are the ones that experience what is being discussed. As such women would know better how to explain it to others, other women and other men. Maryam (Mary), the mother of Jesus (Isa), and the mother of Moses, are indispensable to the argument. Their experiences in labor and as a nursing mother, respectively, have a wonderful place i…
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…e or nearly so—maybe my answer would be different. But none of this is the case. The state effectively discourages women from having children at all, a fact cast in even sharper relief as mothers have disproportionately suffered during the pandemic. If the “choice” to have children is a choice between doing what I love, and giving up everything I cherish about my life for certain poverty and the wreckage of my mental health, has it ever really bee…
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…be known. Dom Crossan and his Jesus Seminar colleagues have been systematically challenging the “nothing can be known” assertion, along with its peculiar corollary: “Whatever can be known matters less than historic church teaching and church practice.” For example, they think it matters a great deal to be able to bracket the weirdly anachronistic and formulaic statements attributed to Jesus of Nazareth that were never spoken by the Galilean upsta…
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…ings among Catholics. Too bad secular humanists don’t do healings or alter calls because it was the type of atmosphere that could excite a response. A secular humanist convention is not the witches’ coven that some sheltered theists might expect. I did not see anyone smoking and never heard a profane word. Drinking at the reception was modest by anyone but a teetotaler’s standards, and far less than at the Episcopal fundraiser I’d attended the pre…
Read More…shootout interrupted a festival for the Virgin of Guadalupe. In other Mexican cartel news, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, known as “El Mas Loco” and leader of the La Familia cartel, died last Thursday in a gun battle with Mexican police. For many, Moreno was both a folk hero and religious leader, but to others he was a vicious criminal. Elephant tails, dried hedgehogs, and chicken blood were among the items seized by US Customs and Border Protection at…
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