Religion Dispatches
…type of Salafi Islam we’re so alarmed by. So what kinds of Salafis can we live with, and who would we prefer to live without? Salafis in Egypt are hard to pin down, too. Does their conservative theology make them politically dangerous, or politically irrelevant? Today, we’d guess the former. But prior to January 25, 2011, leading Egyptian Salafis were against political participation. None of this is to say we shouldn’t have real concerns. But we…
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…lifornia from taxpayer-funded travel. But, representing a sort of nexus of New World Order conspiracy theories, apocalyptic Christianity, (often not overt) white supremacism, and gun-toting militia members, the legislators involved in the June 23 stunt managed to pull it off. “I feel that the Republican Party in my state right now has been taken over by anti-government libertarians, and it is very split,” explains local political organizer Alicia…
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…on religion and society in our own voices. For many of us, those views include condemnation of proselytizing. I hope I live to see the day when proselytizing is widely considered socially unacceptable in American polite society. But if I only live to see the day that the Bonnie Kristians of the world can no longer get away with claiming in a major secular media outlet that no one could have serious, substantive reasons for objecting to Christian…
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…liturgical rituals.” He extends it also to “individual believers trying to live their lives in accordance with their faith not only at church, but at home, in their neighborhoods, and in the workplace.” Nondiscrimination laws threaten this sense of liberty, Sprigg asserts, because they impede some people from doing things like denying same-sex couples wedding cakes. Yet Sprigg’s account of religious liberty is deeply misleading. Partially given aw…
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…lity. I think spirituality has 16 different dimensions. When you choose to live a spiritual life and choose to live a life of faith, that’s when you choose what you value from the 16 desires. That’s your spirituality. Some will say that spirituality is a separate thing and is somehow detached from our desires and our values. It’s a reasonable view, but it’s not my view. I don’t like it because it isolates spirituality in a certain sense. It comple…
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…ary to the Bible. “Arming yourself is a suggestion that you do not plan to live in peace, that you plan to live in violent confrontation with others,” he said. “I think the Bible speaks very clearly to us on that point.” Schenck was frank, too, about evangelical fears of government and of a president they think “might be a crypto-Muslim,” about “myths” of Christian persecution that need to be dispelled, and of racial fears among white evangelicals…
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…rs. It’s a way of proving their faith in the President, his power, and his worldview. In rural Michigan, where I live, the local Chamber of Commerce proudly posts photographs of businesses where no one is wearing masks. There are rumors of a “Maskless Monday” protest coming up at my son’s high school. A statewide mandate to wear masks in public places has been reason enough for angry citizens and self-appointed, armed militias to show up maskless…
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…lamation is guilty of all of that, and more. In his recent article for the New York Times, Jonathan Weisman attempts to make sense of this thorny issue, though it fails the Socrates test. First, of course, is defining antisemitism, a subject of immense complexity. As is Zionism. And anti-Zionism. But Weisman, author of (((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump, clearly sees all three through a pretty reductionist lens. Zionism, h…
Read More…here’s certainly a low bar that needs to be cleared. If you come up with a new system that can only deliver gummy worms and vegemite to people’s cupboards, that won’t do. You can’t live on gummy worms and vegemite. So although the reformers can’t set out to re-engineer all people to eat just as they’d like, they also need to avoid situations where they can’t even provide a basic variety of wholesome and tasty food. Where meat is concerned, the ans…
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…n, LGBTQ people and queer folk are talked about, instead of talked with,” Oliveto said. “And lives are turned into issues. And when we turn anyone into an issue, it makes it easier to do harm. [The shooting] just confirmed that it’s time for an LGBTQ voice to sit at the table.” But even with Oliveto’s voice at the table, passionately advocating for her inclusive vision, she acknowledges that the institutional church has deep divisions over LGBTQ p…
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