Religion Dispatches
…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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…justice-centered critique of the appalling gluttony epitomized in the GOP plan: I believe they could and would respond to a full-on attack on a plan that so glaringly exacerbates already-soaring inequality. For what other reason would Bernie Sanders be the nation’s most popular politician… repeatedly? And despite what Democratic moderates (and their pundits) would have you believe, the U.S. is not a “center-right” nation; if anything, we are a “c…
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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…
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…PN journalist Dan Le Batard, who writes, My grandmother put my mother on a plane believing they might see each other again in three months. It took 12 years. Grandma put her on a plane because she couldn’t stomach the idea of both of her children being in jail at once—her son for his politics, her daughter for trying to go to church to honor the dead. Days after she fled, three militia members with machine guns broke into the house at 3 a.m. looki…
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…ust be made to enforce it. In the April 2007 priesthood session, a musical number was provided by a men’s chorus. The chorus was selected and trained by Brigham Young University professor Rosalind Hall, who also chose the music for the choir—but Hall was not allowed to attend the performance; instead, she was replaced by a male colleague, Ronald Staheli, for that one event. In fact, Hall was not even allowed to be in the conference hall to hear he…
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…emselves that they might then help others privately and voluntarily. God’s plan, in short, is the libertarian plan mixed with Christian self-restraint; for capitalism without morality is anarchy. Much of this is standard-issue conservative economic script, of course. But to this familiar story, Ramsey adds his theology, giving divine imprimatur to a particular and historically bound set of ideas. Wielding the Book of Proverbs and Zig Ziglar, where…
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…former Trump aide and loyalty enforcer[75] who is involved in Project 2025 planning, says “The president’s plan should be to fundamentally reorient the federal government in a way that hasn’t been done since F.D.R.’s New Deal.”[76] Project 2025 director Dans also mentioned the New Deal and Great Society social net programs in telling Bannon that the administrative state is “completely unrooted in the Constitution.”[77] Such comments are reminders…
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…me shows), even when something unintentional happens—say you know that the airline didn’t intentionally keep you from flying—the question that humans often pose is, “Was this preventable?” “Could they have done something to prevent that?” And that’s when we wonder—well, who could have done something to prevent it? The person at the counter? The pilot? The CEO? We don’t know, and so we have, in a sense, a certain disorientation and don’t know to wh…
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