Religion Dispatches
…ork, and they have the potential to do even more. I have no doubt that many consultants and stakeholders wrestled with all the issues I’ve spotted here, and many more, and that this reflects their sincere best efforts to balance multiple constituencies and interests, many of which are at odds with one another. It’s just too bad that, to me at least, what they came up with reflects that….
Read More…right, everyone: Rick Perry’s anti-science ramblings gave Jon Huntsman the best week of his campaign. But perhaps an even bigger accomplishment by Perry was reorganizing reality in such a way as to make Mormons—reputed to be the most politically conservative religious groups in the U.S.—appear moderate. In fact, Perry has the two climate-changing-believing Mormons in the GOP presidential hopeful pool looking like downright liberals. And Perry hims…
Read More…bstinence only education—the primacy of waiting until marriage. Nor did it promote a “virginity pledge” through which teens are asked to pledge to God and each other to remain celibate until their wedding night. In short, when religious trappings, and moralizing lectures are laid aside and young people are encouraged to think through the consequences of having sex (mainly unprotected sex), and are given the tools on how to have safe sex when they…
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…, they are calling us to lay aside the egotism that holds us back from our best selves and from the divine. This is certainly true of the doctrines of Trinity and Incarnation, for example. They also insist that the best way of achieving this is by compassion, in which, “all day and every day” we have to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there. The doctrines and mythos of religion only make sense if we put them into pr…
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…sociopathic question, “Could a plague of biblical proportions be America’s best hope for religious revival?” Meanwhile, in Christianity Today David Roach is celebrating a supposed uptick in conversions achieved by evangelistic organizations that have built web resources for the purpose of deliberately playing on people’s fears of coronavirus as a means of bringing them to Jesus. Extremist organizations are also exploiting the pandemic to recruit f…
Read More…faith needs to be out in the world – challenged by the things they see, broken-hearted by the world’s suffering, reaching out to those who are in need, no matter how their beliefs may differ. Cutting ourselves off from the world in the “Best Christian Workplaces” where we can never be challenged only serves to further divide an already partisan world. Anywhere can be the “Best Christian Workplace” – so long as it is a place where our deepest passi…
Read More…oc way, if you think about it). A perfectly fair question is whether it is best to imagine health care as the kind of thing best handled in a centralized or de-centralizedway. But to ask, and then answer, that question fairly, we need to jettison the old rhetorical saws about socialist medicine, government takeovers and death panels. Let the dead bury their dead. There is another question lying behind these questions, and I continue to wonder if m…
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…d enacted the nation’s strictest work requirements for welfare recipients. Best friend to the plutocrat and ruthless scourge to the poorest among us: that’s Sam Brownback’s actual idea of “national moral leadership.” But I do hope that Rabbi Saperstein is right in respect to the guy’s qualifications for his new job. And at the very least, it will be a great day for Kansas and Kansans when Sam Brownback departs Topeka. _______ 8.4.17 Author’s No…
Read More…haviors that were chosen, by the way. I figure if these are some of God’s “best” and gay and lesbian people are not, perhaps it’s simply because we have a higher standard of morality than God’s “best.” Indeed, I think the LGBT community has far more courage than Osteen, who simply wants to “stay in my lane” and preach the feel-good gospel that keeps the money rolling in. What makes God’s “best,” Joel, is not someone who hides behind a happy gosp…
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…at alternative title would you give the book? Are Diamonds Always a Girl’s Best Friend? Myths of Sex and Jewelry How do you feel about the cover? I love the cover, the way the designer cropped the Ingres painting to make it more mysterious and suggestive. The Indian edition also has a lovely cover, a painting by Raja Ravi Varma of an Indian woman covered in jewelry and smiling seductively. Is there a book out there you wish you had written? Which…
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