Religion Dispatches
…weekdays 7:00-8:00 p.m. on Washington DC’s WAVA 105.1. Still, as much as I appreciated (and occasionally even found inspiring) these programs’ message of self-improvement and God-centered living, I often lamented the absence of other Christian voices on the dial. Not necessarily liberal ones (in fact, the Christian religious commentary I’ve found the most stimulating has tended to be the conservative end of the spectrum, at least regarding doctrin…
Read More…s would be arrested and prosecuted. Lokodo said the parade was designed to promote homosexuality to young people. “We are aware that there are inducements, including money, being offered to young people to promote the practice,” he said. Lawyer Nicholas Opiyo said he believed the minister was unaware that parade organizers had formally notified police of their intention to hold a public gathering. “In terms of the legal procedure, they ticked all…
Read More…ments “reflect the hate that is typical of homophobia,” and said he was disappointed a representative of the Catholic Church, “apparently lacking arguments, now resorts to insults.” … “We have defended the natural family, as enshrined and recognized in our Peruvian Constitution,” said Congressman Julio Rosas, of the opposition, right-wing Fuerza Popular party. As we have noted, anti-gay American evangelicals, including Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver…
Read More…Christians, take comfort in the fact that their founders can no longer disappoint or embarrass them. Increasingly covered by ever-thickening layers of time, these charismatic persons will never be discovered embezzling money, enjoying kinky sex, or (The Da Vinci Code notwithstanding) fathering surprise children. It’s not necessary to label something a “cult” to understand the potential peril involved in looking to a living guru. However honest an…
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…that the new museum would promote tolerance “just as building health clubs promoted health.” This was not the first time that the Wiesenthal Center and the LA Museum of Tolerance formulated its own foreign policy; and in doing so implied that they were speaking for the American Jewish community at large. The center endorsed enthusiastically the Bush administration’s Iraq War, and in 2006 it dubbed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez an anti-Semite. A…
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…n of the hermaphrodite in Fellini’s Satyricon. To be sure, Bowie’s a freak—code for “fag” among the real-life Jeff Spicolis in my junior high class, righteous dudes whose idea of total radness is firing up a beer bong, dropping the needle on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, and watching The Wizard of Oz with the sound turned off. But he’s so heart-stoppingly beautiful, in such a confusingly feminine way, that he short-circuits my teenage brain,…
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…l data, and at 19.6 percent in its earlier general survey. (The difference appears to have more to do with polling methodology than with voting habits.) The Public Religion Research Institute, in a study published on November 15, pegs the religiously unaffiliated at 16 percent of the electorate—and they figure that 78 percent of the category went for Obama. Crucially, like Latinos, the nones are young. One in three Americans under 30 are religious…
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…ific integrity to Washington. 8. Stem Sold Less than four months after his appointment, Collins announced the approval of stem-cell line funding. On December 2, he said 13 new human embryonic stem-cell lines were approved for use in federally funded research. President Obama issued the executive order approving the use of the lines in research. President Bush had killed federal funding for such research, instead limiting research dollars to cell l…
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…employ of Obama, in the employ of McCain, in the employ of Oprah, and I’m apparently not going to be alive on Election Day.” Mansfield apparently got McClellanized by his fellow Christians: “if I as a public Christian and former pastor can be treated like this by Christians, then I suppose people like Al Franken and Hillary Clinton must get even worse from church folks. So, why would they ever think of embracing the God of people filled with such…
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…ite the disapproval of society and the churches. Today, the principalities appear mightier than Stringfellow could have imagined them in his time. We all know the litany: corporations becoming globalized and religions rearing once again for holy war, this time armed with dirty bombs and Predator drones. The world is warming, and the principalities render us helpless to let ourselves stop it. It is sensible to think of these as problems best handle…
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