Religion Dispatches
…side of Temple Square, cheerfully singing hymns from the screens of their iPhones or from green-backed hymnals, while a clutch of protestors—evangelical Christians, mostly, the same familiar, ragged gang materializing every conference—takes its place behind barricades on a small patch of grass. A stranger, upon learning that I don’t have one of the highly-coveted tickets to the Sunday Conference sessions, spontaneously offers me his last extra. Mi…
Read More…” I was flabbergasted at what I was hearing—a staunch Republican switching tickets. It wasn’t long before my shock increased when my mother later that same morning said of McCain, “I can’t vote for him. He acts like he’s supposed to just be elected without doing anything.” When I asked if she would vote for Obama, she hedged. “I don’t have to vote for anybody.” True, she doesn’t, but I hate to think she might not vote for Obama simply because he’s…
Read MoreWhile a number of conservative Christian leaders raise questions about Glenn Beck’s Mormonism, Worldview Matters’ host Brannon Howse continued his attack in a conversation with Kirk Cameron about why Cameron did not participate in Glenn Beck’s Divine Destiny. Howse marveled at the “thick irony” wherein Cameron (the actor who played Buck, the converted journalist warning about the “demonic spirituality of a one world religion” in the Left Behind m…
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…addressed, I wouldn’t find it so disturbing. Were Detroit’s finest giving tickets to Speedo-clad gentlemen terrorizing Americas beaches and public pools, I think they’d have a case. I think it’s safe to say that for most people what is ultimately repugnant about the aforementioned policies in some Islamic societies today is not their religious inspiration, but their ultimately tyrranical nature, the imposition of the opinions of one segment of so…
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…ents, booked an on-campus venue, and began to advertise the event and sell tickets. Then, 11 days before the drag fundraiser was set to take place, WT President Walter Wendler, who has a record of inserting his right-wing Christian bias into his public roles, unilaterally canceled the performance via a pedantic email. Seidel tells the story of the drag show cancelation at West Texas A&M (clip=5.5 minutes): Much of the moralizing communique was cou…
Read More…can’t find any job; among younger males, especially African-Americans, the number is much higher—in many areas one in two workers is without work. Yet Congress, with a Democratic majority, can’t get it together to extend unemployment benefits. Our solons just flew out of town for a weeklong holiday vacation. Republicans, joined by Democratic deficit hawks, insist that any extension be “deficit neutral” and come out of unspent stimulus money. But…
Read More…Back from my Bloggingheads hiatus, I talk with Get Religion’s Mollie Hemingway about whether Mitt Romney’s plan to discuss his Mormonism tonight at the Republican National Convention benefit his candidacy: And we also discussed the significance of the fact that Barack Obama is the only Protestant on both presidential tickets: …
Read More…osophy of history, leaves no other way to understand it—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Huckabee seems to be selling tickets on the Titanic….
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…lerk to get back my ID card and the ultimate prize: a plastic block with a number on it. I was then permitted to sit in a chair—but not look at any manuscripts, yet. Juste sat down beside me. “What you will see here,” he whispered, “is the earliest Latin manuscript to contain Arabic words. The earliest proof of the transmission of Arabic science to the West. Now I will order the manuscript.” He filled out a form and took it to another desk. Te…
Read More…er skirt. Second, it seems hypocritical: you’ll host a concern for and buy tickets to see a female performer sing songs about things that are totally haram (according to different opinions), but not if she’s wearing clothing you find inappropriate? From the artist’s point of view, it also seems like a seems like an affront. It compromises the artists’ “package deal” of music, image, and stage presence, the latter two of which sometimes include sca…
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