Religion Dispatches
…ey on American Jewish attitudes. His money isn’t about 2016 or even 2020 or 2024, it’s about staving off the shifting views of American Jews about Israel, or at least constraining political dialogue about it. Citizens United enabled Adelson to pour as much of his money as he wants into influencing elections, but that’s really a misnomer. He’s not influencing the outcome of elections, but enforcing how candidates speak. Case in point (a story we kn…
Read More
…thanksgiving for the life of Sister Mary Theresa Kane, who died August 22, 2024, in Watchung, New Jersey. A Sister of Mercy for 69 years, she was 87 years old.” Theresa Kane was, in my view, the most consequential, respected, and beloved American Catholic woman of the last half century, without whom enormous changes could not have happened. Theresa was born Margaret Kane in 1936 into a large family with Irish immigrant parents. She entered the Si…
Read More
…ical thinkers. All of this poses a threat to high-control religion because freedom of thought means a loss of control. We can see this in the recent book bans and libraries closing. Some libraries are becoming “adult only.” It’s a tragedy because kids like me in abusive or restrictive homes won’t be able to access the place where many find freedom: the public library. In the book you use “rift” to refer both to your separation from Christian patri…
Read More
…otest, take our nation back!”—Trump will host his first formal rally of the 2024 presidential campaign season at the Waco Regional Airport. The location is, in theory, all about the positive Trump vibes in Texas. As his campaign staff wrote, “It is undisputed that Texas is Trump Country after electing 37 Trump Endorsed Candidates and recent polling among Texas primary voters.” Indeed, Waco boasts the largest Baptist university in the world, which…
Read More
…riters of this woefully inadequate document. Unbelievable as it may seem in 2024, and given the focus on issues like sex and gender, the 116 footnotes to this document include exactly no references to anything written by a woman. And, nearly half (at least 56) of the references are to the writings of Francis with most of the rest related to other church documents. This alone results in remarkably thin gruel. It suggests that remedial work is in or…
Read More
…e United States in the event of an authoritarian takeover of the country in 2024. Written by Professor Erica Chenoweth and Dr. Zoe Marks, the Pro-Democracy paper recommends immediate investment into the development of alternative systems and structures in order to render authoritarian-captured structures irrelevant. Chenoweth and Marks point to soviet-Poland’s underground schools created to maintain popular education during the occupation. Transge…
Read More
…s speech—after a long list of far-right celebrity shout outs—by framing the 2024 election as a battle: “the greatest in our history, most important battle in our lives is taking place right now as we speak. For seven years, you and I have been engaged in an epic struggle to rescue our country from the people who hate it and want to absolutely destroy it.” The stakes aren’t just political control—though political control is part of it—but existenti…
Read More
…years in the White House. Lincoln’s junior law partner, William Herndon, a freethinker himself, carried on an extensive correspondence with Parker and made sure that Lincoln read Parker’s voluminous speeches and articles (which Lincoln was happy to do). In fact, Lincoln’s famous line about a “house divided” originated with Parker. The energetic and prodigiously gifted Parker, still claimed by today’s Unitarians as a denominational demigod, was, ba…
Read More
…s of abortion rights and LGBTQ inclusion, can obtain “get out of criticism free” cards simply because they are outspoken opponents of Christian nationalism. Clearly we need better language to address anti-democratic Christian beliefs. So how does one responsibly cover Christian nationalists these days? To begin with, we must find language that doesn’t allow for the easy whitewashing of “respectable” Christians who hold authoritarian theological be…
Read More
…or our own culture. People ask me, what’s the harm? Why not just go gluten free? And the answer is that going gluten free has all sorts of effects. It affects your relationship with your friends and family. It affects your relationship with your own past and foods that you love. While there might be some culture in which celebratory foods don’t typically contain gluten, that’s not our culture. Do you think there’s an incentive to setting yourself…
Read More