…st changes drastically once that rhetorical tradition phases out. Thinking about transitions in lying: something about this concept of fact-checking feels native to the internet age. It’s hard to imagine something like it existing even thirty years ago. There certainly were no fact-checkers during the period of the things that I was working on. Aside from the Garden of Eden, [The Devil Wins] is not about any particular lie. The issue of determinin…
…in the Oregon-Idaho Conference. Out of how many? Well, there were probably about 200 United Methodist clergy in those two states. Dad and I were the first clergy couple appointed in the conference.* The first in history? Yes. And you were the first child born to a clergywoman in the Oregon-Idaho conference. Really? I didn’t know that. That’s a lot of firsts! I don’t know if you like being called this, but you’re a pioneer in the United Methodist C…
…the violence epidemic. Based on a similar survey conducted in 2017 amongst United Methodists in the United States, it contributes to the “truth telling” element of a planned truth-and-reconciliation process on gender and sexual abuse in Episcopal spaces. And the truth is horrifying. Of the more than 2400 responses collected, 475 (20%) are from cisgender LGB Episcopalians. Nearly 40% of these—189 individuals—reported being the targets of inappropri…
…pt and inequality, the Eucharist is received unworthily. If that’s true, I know a planet full of popes, cardinals, bishops and priests who ought to be denied Communion! Section 202 of the sixth chapter is eye-popping in that it is the first clear indication that Pope Francis is in favor of a married clergy. He says that pastors have shown a lack of understanding about married life because they are single, and that the married clergy of the eastern…
By Randall Balmer, Anthea Butler, Evan Derkacz, Jeff Sharlet, and Diane Winston
…owe old white guys a big apology. I now need to reconsider what I think I know about organized labor, feminists, peace churches, etc.) You say Camelot was a “layover on the way to Vietnam.” Maybe so, maybe not. On June 10, 1963, President Kennedy delivered the commencement speech at American University. In the middle of the Cold War, he laid out his vision for a world at peace and how we might get there: “Some say it is useless to speak of peace…
…f extreme individualism. Dobson’s political rhetoric—whether he is talking about homosexuality, tax policy or foreign wars—ultimately returns to the idea that a strong and moral America depends entirely on families where heterosexual parents use pain to establish authority over their children. The obedient child—specifically the obedient son, as Dobson is much less concerned about women—becomes the essential building block of a God-fearing America…
…t we already know? I begin with this paradox of the Venture Smith case. We know about Smith [an ex-slave and memoirist] from his own words, from oral history, from archival research. [But] there’s this endeavor to exhume his grave and to do the analysis on his remains. That paradox led me to think that what we’re asking of DNA is more than just the “truth” of it (and truth in quotes because there are lots of things that are provisional about the t…
…r on. That is the only incident of the kind you bring forward. Now, do you know or do you not know, Mahatma, what a concentration camp is like and what goes on there? Do you know of the torments in the concentration camp, of its methods of slow and quick slaughter? I cannot assume that you know of this; for then this tragicomic utterance “of almost the same type” could scarcely have crossed your lips. Indians were despised and despicably treated i…
…ther-than-terrified descriptions of the dog, and the kids asking for their pet’s whereabouts after the murder—all undermine her attempt at fascist storytelling. Without this reframing, the cruelty stands out as what it is: Violence enacted against someone (or in this case, a dog) whom the perpetrator sees as not worthy of life, safety or basic respect. Marcotte lists examples: The scared migrants fleeing political violence are recast as “invaders”…
…: First pride march since violence disrupted event a decade ago On July 8, about 1800 people took part in the first gay pride march in the capital city of Tallinn in a decade. In 2007, AFP reports, the march “descended into chaos” when “participants were attacked with stones and beaten by opponents.” Czech Republic: ‘We are fair’ campaign hopes to spark debate on marriage equality Earlier this month, activists in the Coalition for Marriage (KZM) l…
