Religion Dispatches
…sitive-living as missing the story behind why these evangelists are so wildly popular. “Analysts’ grinding focus on narrow, destructive dimensions of evangelicalism may, ironically, unveil a limited understanding of the movement resulting in oversimplified conflations that often obscure more than they reveal,” they write in their introduction. Their aim, they contend, is to demonstrate how evangelicalism retains its vitality through the eyes of th…
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…and Catholicism play in the global reproductive rights movement, but you only briefly touched on other religions (Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism). Why didn’t they warrant as much attention? I’m not sure I agree. I write quite a bit about the alliance between conservative Muslims and Christians to fight women’s rights at the UN. I also deal with the connection between Islam and female circumcision. The chapter about India’s missing girls is set…
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…ted to ignore—which is an added kind of blindness. But is Dick Cheney really blind, or does he not care? He’s doubly blind. We’re all blind from a systems point of view. We need to learn that—the sciences are a way to pierce systems blindness, for example environmental science. But some people are also motivated to ignore—which is an added kind of blindness. Sometimes I think progressives like to say that if everybody would just see clearly, the…
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…or obverse of the Social Gospel. No, Jay: the prosperity gospel may be mildly irritating and really dumb. But it’s your neoliberal economic ideology that is the much greater problem and that is, in fact, irreconcilable with the prophets’ vision or with Jesus’ vision of the Reign of God. If only for the joy of the spectacle, I would love to see a theologically clueless apparatchik like Richards go up against a genuine heavyweight like Ulrich Duchro…
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…tradition of debate? I absolutely see this book as engaged in the classically Jewish art of not only argumentation and debate, but intellectual experimentation. There are about 5,000 disagreements recorded in the Talmud, and only about 50 are resolved on the page. The sense that there are multiple ways to see every issue is an important aspect of the Jewish tradition. This is part of why the anthology has so many different, often competing voices:…
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…the term “Christian nationalism,” and another 17 percent or so had heard only “a little bit.” Of the 14 percent who had heard “quite a bit” or “a great deal,” only 5 percent held a favorable view of it. Another 24 percent were unfavorable. That’s not a base broad enough to support a populist movement. Notice the line of argumentation: If people don’t self-identify as Christian nationalists, they must not be Christian nationalists. This is akin to…
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…in someone’s heart, it seems to me, at least on paper, that Robertson really, really likes making money. Lots of money. According to British journalist Greg Palast, Pat has a net worth estimated at between $200 million and $1 billion, a fortunate he amassed through moneymaking ventures including African gold and diamond mines, the Kalo-Vita vitamin pyramid scheme, the Bank of Scotland, the Family Channel, and the Ice Capades, as well as Age-Defyi…
Read More…a had “very strong reasons” for passing it. And, he said, America “absolutely, certainly” does not ‘have the right to lecture other nations about sexual morality.” Museveni justified the bill’s signing based on a “scientific” report he that he said proved nobody is born gay, but Jim Burroway reports at Box Turtle Bulletin that Museveni and his political allies distorted the contents of that report. Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma, an outspoken critic of Amer…
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…at an anti-discrimination rally. But in the car that evening he spoke quickly and excitedly, stumbling over his words a bit but still impressively knowledgeable and articulate, referencing countless texts and ideas I’d never even heard of. I asked if we could stop to pick up some food and, with french fries in our laps, he gave me a quick tour of Salt Lake City, demonstrating an intimate knowledge of the area and the people who call it home. Alasd…
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…t another person. So to keep the level of humanity in forgiveness straight let me say, in writing this blog, if I have offended anyone knowingly or unknowingly, please forgive me and astaghfir-Allah….
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