Religion Dispatches
…study documenting negligence on the part of local members and leaders in addressing abuse—and even the excommunication of some victims and accusers. In 1995, the Church established stronger guidelines and new protocols for reporting abuse, including a 1-800 number for local clergy. …
Read More
…cholars and scientists alike have made a career out of framing religious history as a history of choice. And we, in turn, expect everything to be not just voluntary but also on-demand. But might these everyday acts within our chooser-palooza world occlude from consciousness our acceptance of a tradition that is neither religious nor secular but one that demands that we have a convincing answer to the question of religion? Might these acts of occlu…
Read More
…embly, the sisters officially called for gun control legislation and signed 800 postcards demanding Congress members to pass immigration reform. As LCWR past-president, Sr. Pat Farrell said to the Assembly, “Expressing what we really think and feel, with transparency and vulnerability, is for the brave of heart. It is, however, what we are being asked to do in our current conflict. All of a sudden the world is looking to us.” Like this story? You…
Read More…and how such a discussion got him banned from the American white supremacist site Stormfront and another “national socialist forum.” He goes on to maintain that because America has “nation-wrecking multiculturalist Jews,” rather than “conservative Jews” it has a “Jewish problem:” In any case; educate yourself and learn the difference. Today’s conservatives and want to-be Nazis are ignorant when they obsess so much over the Jews. There is no Jewis…
Read More
…h Stollar, in his adopted angry evangelical persona, described as “antichrist.” Stollar challenged the staffer, “The ‘Wrongly Judged’ video says Jesus and the disciples ‘roamed the hood,’ ‘challenged authority,’ and ‘law enforcement called them outlaws.’ All paired with images of minorities. So, roaming hoods and disobeying the police are now being glorified?” In an attempt to clarify, the staffer insisted, “That lifestyle is absolutely not being…
Read More
…and during his presidency, Harris has Sherlock Homeboys digging into her past and dusting off their old race science textbooks in an attempt to somehow prove or disprove her ethnic and racial identity—which is just racism pawned off as political analysis. The weird (yes, that word) thing is, for people who claim to be totally not obsessed with her race and definitely not obsessed with making race an issue, they sure seem concerned with her race. T…
Read More…tch officials for evaluating asylum claims by measuring their stories against stereotypes about how gay people ought to behave rather than reviewing the specific stories and evidence presented. That is what the standard EU rules require, the court held, and it needed to be applied to people seeking asylum on the basis of their sexual orientation as it would be to any other asylum seekers. Mexico: Officials in Baja California Thwart First Gay Weddi…
Read More…he killing of Xulhaz Mannan, a USAID employee, editor and gay rights activist stabbed to death with a friend last month. Details from Associated Press: Police identified the suspect as Shariful Islam Shihab, a former member of the banned Islamic group Harkatul Jihad. They said he joined another militant group, Ansarullah Bangla Team, in mid-2015. Shihab, 37, was arrested in the southwestern district of Kushtia, Munirul Islam, head of a newly forme…
Read More
…he respectability blacks who wish we’d all just get out of the streets and stop protesting. I won’t miss the well-meaning white people who try to commiserate, but won’t have a substantive conversation, or commit to fighting for justice and equality for brown and black people. I won’t miss the large majority of the Asian American community that remains silent. And I sure as hell won’t miss the fake Christianity of conservative white evangelicals. Y…
Read More
…sidential election has proven to be excellent fodder for Bakker and his guests, most of whom are Trump supporters. One guest told Bakker that he’s known since April 2011 that Trump was going to the President of the United States. On that same episode, Dr. Don, founder of the Divine Wellness Center, and Mary Colbert, author and prophet, said that the spirit of the anti-Christ is on Hillary Clinton. Little of what Bakker and his guests are saying ab…
Read More