Religion Dispatches
…if lost or stolen, but only if you first write down each and every serial number. Then you have to keep this information somewhere that’s not the same somewhere you keep the checks. But then they really do NOT spend just like cash—especially abroad where we meet and mix with people in their own places. Such places are not subject to our being guests there. So I do tend toward keeping travel cash in an odd place. (No, I’m not gonna share with you…
Read More…e ever-execrable Mark Tooley, writing the same hack piece for the 40,000th time at the Weekly Standard. He strains at gnats because ultimately he has nothing else to fall back on, no compelling ideology, no good news for anyone who hasn’t been following his worn-out shtick for thirty years. So, good if they’re afraid of the religious left. It means we’re doing our job. And just in case anyone missed the number of religious progressive groups endor…
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…elicals and pagans even coming together as described in Beyond the Burning Times (Lion, 2009). Halloween is also a good time to confront monsters. Monster Theory (University of Minnesota Press, 1994), a series of essays edited by Jeffrey Cohen, addresses this question: “Monsters provide a key to understanding the culture that spawned them… What happens when critical theorists take the study of monsters seriously as a means of examining our culture…
Read More…errible. But how we reduce over a billion people world wide, to the meager number (who, globally do not form even a fraction of 1% of Muslims) is frankly unfathomable. But there you have it. Maybe these friendly neighborhood-spokespersons appeal to the mainstream American sentiment because they tend to all do two things in continual succession: 1) They keep saying they are “American”; 2) They keep apologizing for those who did commit terror, who a…
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…e of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. I cannot count the number of times I have heard well-meaning, good-hearted people respond to this appeal, saying, “Things are a lot better for gay people today than they were several years (or decades) ago. In time, our society (or churches) will come around on this issue.” To these friends and others, I must say, “It’s time.” For Lucas, Brown, Clementi, Walsh, and Chase the time is up. For t…
Read More…alism that Harvard has traditionally espoused. JUNE In June, Greaves did a number of interviews taking aim at Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and his efforts to ban gay marriage and limit access to abortion. A native of Detroit, Greaves called Snyder “an idiot governor.” He discussed campaigns that would invoke the free exercise clause to challenge Snyder’s legislation, including the assertions that gay marriage is a Satanic sacrament and that Satan…
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…comes from one of the favorite Bible verses of prosperity preachers at the time, including Jim Bakker. But my editor thought that it was too obscure for most readers and I’m sure she was right. How do you feel about the cover? It nicely evokes the look of 1980s television and captures some of Jim and Tammy’s appeal. PTL was all about images so there were any number of options. Too bad books can’t come with a dozen different covers to choose from….
Read More…have dismissed the film as blatantly false. But what I’m hearing from a number of Mormons deeply familiar with the Proposition 8 campaign is that the film gets it mostly right. [See also Holly Welker’s review here. – Eds] Some take exception to editing choices that sequence events out of context for dramatic effect; others wish that the filmmakers had not been so cartoonish in their depictions of anti-gay-marriage standpoints, using only notori…
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…faith through a prism of American nationalism? Not to mention the growing number of Americans without any religious commitment? Beck tells us, “you must fall to your knees and you must reconnect with God. He is not asking you. He is commanding us as a people to get behind Him. He will right the wrongs. We will have to pay a price because we lived outside of His laws. We will have to pay a price, but every day we don’t get behind Him, the price ge…
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…incidents within the rabbi’s family. But the hunt for Kranczer comes at a time when federal agencies are taking a more proactive approach to prosecuting abuse in the Orthodox community. In Brooklyn last year, about 25 Orthodox men were arrested on sex abuse charges. This year in Lakewood, New Jersey, a predominantly Orthodox community, the local prosecutor has launched 29 sex crime investigations. According to law enforcement officials in New Jer…
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