Religion Dispatches
…e requires some creativity and thoughtfulness; marking the appearance of a new decade, or a new century, proves to be far more challenging than remembering to change the year on the checks and Thank You notes I write in January. This time around, there’s no escaping the fact that our collective feet are now planted firmly in the twenty-first century. And it is worth reflecting on what this dawning perspective (of seeing ourselves as twenty-first…
Read More…upcoming Synod of Bishops on the family. Elisabetta Povoledo wrote in the New York Times that “in Francis’s new, more forgiving church, these otherwise familiar domestic arrangements were not considered an impediment.” No same-sex couples were included. Vatican watchers said the public marriages, the first by a pope since 2000, were meant to send a message, something Francis has done previously to soften the church’s image on social issues. Durin…
Read More…school policy and the American Counseling Association code of ethics. That code, by the way, is clear about what is expected from counselors: Counselors do not condone or engage in discrimination based on age, culture, disability, ethnicity, race, religion/spirituality, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status/partnership, language preference, socioeconomic status, or any basis proscribed by law. Counselors do not discriminate a…
Read More…ry to slow the momentum. All Africa has reported that Museveni will back a new version: “According to MPs backing a new version of the bill, the law will be watered down and focused on the threat of supposed homosexual recruitment of children.” Medard Bitekyerezo, an MP supporting the law, said it would not “harass” consenting adults. A Catholic Bishop said people frustrated by the Constitutional Court’s action “should not take the laws into their…
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…of Faith to challenge the City’s policy, and the court proceedings began anew. The Good News Club decision created a new legal theory for opponents of church-state separation. The Court held that religion is nothing but speech from a certain point of view, and therefore all religious activities are protected by the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment. “When Milford denied the Good News Club access… on the grounds that the club was religious…
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…, and perhaps more of a rumble than a quake. And while the durability of a new movement is always difficult to assess when it’s young, it is nonetheless already clear that the politics of the “new” evangelicals are more complicated than its evangelists often portray. Pally’s essay is an update of her 2011 book and essay on the same subject, both of which appeared during the 2012 presidential campaign. In this latest essay she takes stock of evange…
Read More…rds” against gays, and the time has come to respond. Referring to the 1969 New York riots that became a milestone in the American gay rights movement, he said, “The church needs a Stonewall.” Hong Kong: Catholic Bishop Defends Cardinal, Compares Homosexuality to Drug Abuse Bishop Michael Yeung Ming-cheung of the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong, defending a political letter from Cardinal John Tong opposing marriage equality and anti-discrimination pr…
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…tifying secession. Of course South Carolina is a very different place than New Hampshire where, as Blumenthal points out, you won’t find any Confederate monuments. Maybe Haley forgot about that in the moment she was asked the question, which genuinely seemed to throw her off—but it’s also apparent that the falsification of history, which has served Republicans well at the ballot box in the party realignment decades, has become such an immovable pa…
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…, does not believe that the Hills knew what they saw. In doing so he reproduces the dynamic of the skeptical expert who, he argues, led the Hills to become spiritual seekers in the first place. In the culture of new age spirituality they found a new place to feel at home after their rejection by the establishment. Yet even in this careful retelling, they remain outside the boundary of legitimate knowledge….
Read More…theist Delusions (Yale University Press), Reitan’s work chops away at the “new” of new atheism. The subtle notion of “new” suggests in itself some progress, which, again, we need to revisit without the glorification of man on the mind. Christopher Lasch’s question is as urgent today as it was when he posed it 18 years ago in his book The True and Only Heaven How does it happen that serious people continue to believe in progress, in the face of mas…
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