Religion Dispatches
…just getting started. While checking out the latest update from Stand With Texas Women on Facebook, I heard Texas Sen. Donna Campbell on the local news declare that “Democracy was traded for mobocracy” during the successful filibuster. Mobocracy, really? Needless to say, the proverbial line was drawn in the sand, yet again. The orange-clad were directed to arrive at the Capitol the following day, July 2, ready to register their stance on HB2 and,…
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Adam Clayton Powell called it “cheap grace,” but we might call it “cheap atonement”: the effort by sinners to select which sins to acknowledge and repent. Pope Benedict XVI ended his heavily protested visit to England with a heartfelt apology for German bombings of England during the Battle of Britain; though he refused to accept Christian responsibility for the Holocaust, blaming it instead on pagans and atheists. Given that Cardinal Walter Kasp…
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…xtbooks. As the second-largest bulk purchaser of textbooks in the country, Texas determines what students learn not only in Texas, but in many other states, where districts purchase the same versions. The board members have appointed six experts, and, the choices appear carefully crafted to be fair and balanced to differing views: one side representing a commitment to sound education, and the other side representing an agenda of religious far-righ…
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…as echoed that charge in a panel discussion livestreamed last week by Just Texas, a reproductive justice group affiliated with the left-leaning Texas Freedom Network (TFN). They also lodged a perhaps more substantial and often overlooked objection: the ban, like attempts to curtail reproductive choice generally, amounts to an assault on religious freedom. “It’s an extension of the insistence on one particular theological point of view as the offic…
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…, not the fourth century … You’re not free to practice your religion in my airline seat.’ ‘This is male entitlement .. the height of male arrogance.’ One comment referred to this as a ‘back of the bus’ issue; as in, women being asked to move in such circumstances was tantamount to assigning them a lesser status as citizens and lower dignity as human beings. Other readers proposed that airlines set aside special seating for men requiring such accom…
Read More…ed by us in a few years.” With almost $30 million set aside in the budget, Texas is second only to California in the bulk purchase of textbooks. But Texas, unlike California, approves and purchases books for all the state’s school districts. Publishers often edit and revise textbooks in order meet the specific demands of the Texas board members. Other states pay attention too, and what’s adopted in Texas is also adopted in many conservative states…
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…e success either. The opening weekend saw sales of more than $6 million in tickets. That’s the kind of number that will inspire others to try and figure out the formula for the faith-and-family blockbuster. Yet, with the cost of the film reportedly exceeding $30 million, it’s an open question whether or not the Left Behind reboot will get a second installment. The marketing problem of evangelical movies is still, stubbornly, a problem. The general…
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…that require yoga teacher training programs to be licensed by the State of Texas. Until the last few years, Texas approached the regulation of yoga as it approached the regulation of religious institutions and organizations: it didn’t. But in January of 2010, The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) informed the program directors of yoga teacher training programs in Houston and Dallas that they may be running career schools as defined by Chapter 132 o…
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…way from the hard work of repentance, who tickle our ears with promises of cheap grace, and offer a vision of the cross of Jesus that has nothing to say to the crosses, and lynching trees, of history. But, if we do, we will be settling for the gospel of Caesar, not the good news of Jesus Christ. Perhaps it is time to put down the chalk, stop drawing pyrotechnical conspiracy theories that play into our worst fears and listen, instead, for the diffi…
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…des of Hanna-Barbera’s The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible. The number of Bible courses in Texas has gone up since 2007, when Texas passed a law encouraging schools to offer them. Texas is not alone in having such a statute; in recent years, Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Arizona have passed similar laws, and Bible bills are currently making their way through the Wyoming and Arkansas legislatures. While these laws typically urge teac…
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