Religion Dispatches
…stitutions for youth will be stripped bare because of lawsuit payouts, and number of vocations, already low, will become even lower because of the stigma attached to being a priest. The test of Moral Credibility has been found wanting, and the handwriting is on the wall. Even the National Catholic Reporter’s editorial page has called for the Pope to provide answers. No doubt about it, this is perhaps the second biggest crisis in “Christendom,” out…
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…is that White people do not attend Juneteenth festivals in any appreciable numbers. This month I attended two Juneteenth festivals in the Columbia, South Carolina metropolitan area and the results were the same: minimum White attendance. Both events were free to the public, with ideal weather and plenty of good food and entertainment. Whereas a cross-section of Black America was in attendance, Whites stuck out like rice in chocolate pudding. But t…
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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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…nine on the Richter scale. It devastated the population. Estimates of the number of people killed range from 10,000 to 100,000. At the time the quake struck, worshipers filled the churches honoring their dead. The churches, the worshippers, and the city around them were effectively destroyed. Not long after the major quake hit, a tsunami followed that killed those who had rushed to the beaches in fear to avoid the havoc of the earthquake. The cat…
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…insights on the fine line between free speech and hate speech. I read your book, No Land’s Man, [Note: You should too. It’s wonderful.], and I’ve watched Halal in the Family. What’s sparked your interest in combating Islamophobia? We did a piece on the Daily Show five years ago, sort of spawned by Katie Couric’s saying American Muslims need their own Cosby Show, and we took that literally. We created this sketch, put it on the show, it was very fu…
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…of this error as the next person. I first encountered the story on the Facebook page of a well-known historian, who called Omar “beneath contempt,” which stoked a chorus of more hatred, some of it very ugly, racist and/or misogynist. This instinctually led me to want to defend her—but still I wanted to know more for myself. I saw many people writing that she “literally equated” Hamas with Israel and America. I asked someone I know who is a strong…
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…clear violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment and any number of Supreme Court cases. He was removed again last year for refusing to uphold federal law on same sex marriage, on the grounds that it was in violation of God’s law as found in the Old Testament. Like Winthrop, Moore believes that the Old Testament should order American society, whether Exodus or Leviticus. The ancient Israelites in these societies either adhered, or…
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…ous as far back as the Persian Gulf War of 1991 when Israel was hit with a number of Iraqi missiles the Israeli government, which always boasts that it will respond harshly to any attack, did nothing because Washington put up a big red light. Washington appears to be flashing the red light once again. According to the Washington Times, “a senior Israeli official said that Israel has not asked for US aid or permission [to attack Iran] because the N…
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…es—affirming and not—have inquired about holding screenings and hopes that number will continue to grow. He believes that seeing and hearing these stories can change people’s hearts. He says he was changed in the process of making the movie; getting to know some of the missionaries and IHOP staff as people made it harder to think of them as simply “evil fundamentalists.” And, he says, that after spending so much time with missionary Joanna Watson,…
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…hip hop are the devil’s music with no redeeming features. But the growing number of artists and outlets for Christian rap (like the Web site Holy Culture) are challenging many stereotypes and perceptions about how entertainment and evangelization mix to bring a distinctly Christian message to young folks today. And in the recent efforts by conservative Christians to shape the content of educational textbooks in Texas, country and western music ha…
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