Religion Dispatches
…igh Washington to serve as president.” A few years after its founding, the Denver, Colorado-based Promise Keepers experienced an extraordinary growth spurt, drawing tens of thousands of men to rallies in football stadiums and sports arenas across the country. As attendance at its rallies grew—278,000 in 1994, 738,000 in 1995 and more than a million in 1996—so did its revenues. In 1997, more than one million men gathered on the National Mall in Was…
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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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…n version of the terror-triumph complex. There’s one other detail from the Colorado Springs tragedy that illustrates, with disturbing clarity, Monster In The Mirror’s central thesis. As a homophobe and transphobe steeped in Christian (specifically Mormon) theology, the killer likely operated on the conviction that LGBTQ+ people menace the nuclear family—and, perhaps, White mothers and wives most of all. But as illustrated by his own violent relati…
Read More…are a historic milestone for Egypt’s religious institution. Along with the grand imam of al-Azhar mosque, the grand mufti of Egypt holds one of the highest positions on religious authority and plays an important role in determining opinions on religious law. Allam noted that other religious communities in Egypt, such as the Coptic Church, have also condemned homosexuality but say gays and lesbians should be treated fairly. The interview comes amid…
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…e in. Four years after PPRM’s new headquarters and health center opened in Denver, contractors who built it are still picketed at their homes on holidays (including by the Masons, Kekoas, Enyart, and other Colorado for Life affiliates). One pro-life website links, under the heading of “blood workers,” to photographs of the contractors, as well as PPRM staff and security. So far in 2012 PPRM averages 19 incident reports per month, according to Moni…
Read More…voters in Southern states; still, Romney still faces real opposition from Colorado evangelicals, including Colorado-born Bryan Fischer and the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family. Will Romney have to expend extra resources to bring Colorado evangelicals to the polls? And will a statewide ballot initiative on the legalization of marijuana bring younger voters (including younger Colorado evangelicals who some see as potential Democratic vote…
Read More…ch as the war in Iraq, this adminstration’s persistent use of torture or the despoiling of the environment, God’s creation, in the interest of corporate profits. The failure of the gathering in Denver to transcend the tired playbook coming out of Colorado Springs illustrates both the myopia of the movement and the Religious Right’s paucity of leadership….
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…ch as the war in Iraq, this adminstration’s persistent use of torture or the despoiling of the environment, God’s creation, in the interest of corporate profits. The failure of the gathering in Denver to transcend the tired playbook coming out of Colorado Springs illustrates both the myopia of the movement and the Religious Right’s paucity of leadership….
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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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…on The Liturgists. An overwhelmingly white audience attended the event in Denver. Certainly, though, the vibe of the Liturgist event was distinctive, if not always universally appreciated. Merri Metcalf, a white, 27-year-old woman who recently moved to Colorado, said that the Kyrie (the repetition of “Lord Have Mercy, Christ Have Mercy”) reminded her of her old church. It triggered the “disconnect” she used to feel at church, she says. “What I wa…
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