Religion Dispatches
…Graham rushed to its defense. Rep. Randy Forbes, leader of the congressional prayer caucus, is proud of his association. Rep. Frank Wolf and former Rep. Tony Hall took to the pages of Christianity Today to publish such a disingenuous defense that even USA Today scoffed. But that didn’t shake them. It’s taken a hit from its own members, but it’s not down and out….
Read More…ort for a Texas state policy that permits the young people who came to the United States “illegally” as children to attend public universities paying in-state tuition. It’s not radical policy, but Romney’s criticism is yet another point—like Social Security—he’s using to draw a strong contrast with Perry. But doing so puts him to the right of the LDS Church-sponsored Utah Compact on Immigration Reform, underscoring a long-standing perception of Ro…
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The Greater St. Mark Church was raided today as St. Louis County Police thought that protesters were spending the night in the church, which has been used as a staging area for protestors. Police have since closed the building and stated that if anyone congregates on the premises at night, there would be arrests. One member of the Dream Defenders said “what [the police] did today is tell us, what? There is no safety here.” The Pastor of the churc…
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…inancial power comes from a huge and profitable life insurance business it promotes through local councils and parishes. It funnels millions of dollars to the pope and bishops’ conferences as well as to more service-oriented charities. “The Strong Right Arm of the Bishops: The Knights of Columbus and Anti-Marriage Equality Funding,” documents $6.25 million in direct Knights funding to anti-marriage equality campaigns at the national level and in…
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…(Praeger, release date: May 30, 2009). What inspired you to write Vampires Today? What sparked your interest? Some people think I study vampires simply because they are unusual. I’ve even been asked if I am a vampire myself. The reality is that I became interested in the vampire community when I learned of a massive survey being conducted by the Atlanta Vampire Alliance (AVA). Their project was relevant to the sociology of knowledge: instead of de…
Read More…past in a way that sounded like a sweeping statement about Asian Buddhism today. I apologize for that. One way I could have expressed it: in my part of Asia, when I was growing up, Dharma could often be found in high concentrations, but only in small areas. Perhaps the opposite is true in America today. 3. I think the most important point in this discussion is that we have to hold teachers to a different bar than normal practitioners. For normal…
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…“Christ figure.” In the immortal words of Woody Allen, “If Jesus came back today and saw what was going on in his name, he wouldn’t stop throwing up.” It is safe to say that Allen’s comments can be applied to a lot of religious film criticism. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing? As with the above point the main audience is, I hope, students. I tried to write this in an accessible way, introducing key themes in religious studies…
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…of employers to come to individual agreements with each employee. Jesus’ parable, he said, is “anti-minimum wage” and “anti-socialist-union kind of stuff.” (This is just one of the parables of Jesus cited by Barton and others in support of laissez-faire economic policies.) The religious right’s anti-union roots are long and deep. Researchers have traced them through the teachings of R.J. Rushdoony, an intellectual godfather of sorts for much of t…
Read MoreOne year ago today, Ordain Women celebrated the creation of the Relief Society on March 17, 1842 by launching its website with 19 profiles of individuals calling for the ordination of Mormon women. Today it has more than 250 profiles—and has completely transformed Mormon feminism. I continue to be impressed and pleased with the extremely thoughtful work Laurie Goodstein and Jodi Kantor are doing on Mormon women. I recommend a conversation on “The…
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…r final burial. The prospect of Barack Obama as the first president of the United States with African American ancestry is a thrilling possibility for so many, yet also cannot be disassociated from America’s shameful slaveholding past and the ghosts of so many Africans who died so that slavery might live, and African Americans brutally killed as a result of prejudice, hatred, and injustice. In our enlightened, scientific age, we don’t believe in t…
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