Religion Dispatches
…e Cone’s black theology with Marxism. Here he is wildly off base and his unfortunate tendency to take everything he doesn’t like, slap it on to his chalkboard, draw lines, and call it a connection, gets the better of him. Unfortunately, he doesn’t always do his homework. Unlike many Latin American Liberationists, black theologians, including Cone, actually tend to reject Marxism as a philosophical source. It is too white, too Western and, tends to…
Read More…mophobia and the planned September 11 Qur’an burning by a fringe pastor in Gainesville, Florida, issuing the following statement yesterday: “A key tenet of our faith is to accord everyone the freedom to worship as they choose. It is regrettable that anyone would regard the burning of any scriptural text as a legitimate form of protest or disagreement.” Which, if I may translate from the culturally understated, modest, and pragmatic institutional l…
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…We have an unprecedented access to cheap goods, yet we must recognize that cheap goods are cheaply made. I am not speaking of quality, I am speaking of cheap labor. We must recognize that through the act of shopping, whether it is for an article of clothing, a toy, a pint of strawberries, or even our morning cup of coffee, we participate in a global economy that values profit over people. Disposable goods are made by disposable people, faceless in…
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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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…ou’ll read an excerpt below—has surprised me, too. I wish I could find my airline companion and give him this book, to surprise him, too—in a good way. (I would accept Lakers tickets in lieu of apologies, but I think that particular era is done.) This whole book is a result of a profound evolution, and needs to be seen as such. American Muslims have gone through a lot over the last few decades. We were never the caricature Islamophobes made us ou…
Read More…gy. This one was raised by Justice Samuel Alito, who pointed to a Danish effort that would close kosher and halal slaugherhouses through a law that would ban killing an animal without stunning it first. Verrilli described that law as “targeted” at religion in a way the ACA is not. But, Verrilli noted, the contraception benefit is different, as is the companies’ objection. In this case, Verrilli argued, the rights of the employees of Hobby Lobby an…
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…te segregation and economic favoritism. When I spoke with Rothstein on the phone, he underscored the long-term effects of this last policy. During the 1940s and 1950s, suburban subdivisions were built in St. Louis, and throughout the country, using federal loans stipulating that no homes be sold to African Americans. Priced at about $125,000 in today’s dollars, these were affordable—with a mortgage—to working class families, black or white. Yet bl…
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…rican hospitals. In a speech he gave at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Schaeffer told the gathered evangelicals that “humanism,” or the rejection of the Christian basis of knowledge, had led to a great moral downfall in modern America. “It isn’t just abortion,” Schaeffer said. “It’s infanticide. It’s allowing the babies to starve to death after they are born. If they do not come up to some doctor’s concept of a qualit…
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…ment of 50,000, as if the faithful at church. The devotion was audible, as tickets were distributed to friends of the Cuban government and not through a public sale. Here the religious nature of the Cuban sporting event is acknowledged only to be dismissed as inauthentic. The patriotic, quasi-religious crooning is suspicious because of its apparent production by the Cuban government, which distributed tickets to friends. Morosi recognizes religiou…
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…alifies as an insider. Women traveled far to be part of the Ordain Women effort. Julia Murphy, who flew in from her home in Heidelberg, Germany, said, “I know it’s a long way. It’s worth it!” Heather Olson Beal of Nacogdoches, Texas, said, “This wasn’t easy for me to do. I’ve lived with a lot of fear and I can’t say publicly a lot of the things I feel about gender inequality in the church. This is a way to say it.” “I hope that the leaders of…
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