Religion Dispatches
…white evangelicals. Yes, I am bitter. I am tired. I am broken. This battle is for those who have strength, who have hope. I teach the history of American religion and African American religion. I know better than to have hope in this nation to heal its original sin of slavery and racism….
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…gistered in Professor Bott’s classes. (Eleven are registered for BYU’s African-American history course this semester.) Professors at BYU routinely find themselves having to address racist and sexist content taught in Bott’s classes, and many are outraged and embarrassed by his rogue remarks to the Washington Post, say sources at the university. “Dr. Bott does not speak for BYU or the Church and his views are his own,” one religion faculty member t…
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…kes) that were missed in Schulz’s reading. Funny to think that this weirdo can still cause such an uproar; Schulz joked that she would be joining the Witness Protection Program after her piece was posted online. But the truth is, it’s so easy to get the man wrong. I am sympathetic to the instinct that animates Schulz, the suspicion that Americans love Thoreau mostly because selfish individualism is our national religion and he is one of its loudes…
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…,800 deaths occurring each year due to lack of Medicaid expansion in North Carolina. He cautions us to avoid the path of political expediency and to envision and struggle towards the reign of God here on earth. He questions why progressives gave up using the word “welfare” when it’s in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution and why even President Obama won’t use the word “poor” when it’s one of the most prominent words and themes in the Bible. I am…
Read More…itions,” he said. But an advocate of change pointed to steps taken by Anglicans in Canada and Scotland, saying, “We are simply waiting until the voice of the hardline conservatives is too old and too tired to speak any more,” he said. “I think that time will come.” Italy: Civil Unions Bill Passes, Catholic Archbishop Warns of ‘Creeping Fascism’ Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called a confidence vote to force parliamentary action on a civil unions bil…
Read More…t Jews,” rather than “conservative Jews” it has a “Jewish problem:” In any case; educate yourself and learn the difference. Today’s conservatives and want to-be Nazis are ignorant when they obsess so much over the Jews. There is no Jewish problem in Western Europe (with the exception of the UK and France) as we only have 1 million in Western Europe, whereas 800,000 out of these 1 million live in France and the UK. The US on the other hand, with mo…
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…stration, preoccupied with so many other things, will spend precious political capital to try to revive it. Israel’s right-wing leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, seems set to win another term as prime minister and continue blocking the path to peace. Well over 70% of American Jews want a two-state solution. Those I talk to generally want Israel to make significant concessions toward a just peace, but all the depressing facts on the ground leave them fee…
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…ity problems, backed-up sewers, and limited access to food delivery or medical care. Whether genuinely moved or Twitter-shamed into action, Lakewood Church put up a page on its website lateMonday to collect donations and seek volunteers for Samaritan’s Purse, a nondenominational evangelical international relief organization that is a member of VOAD. Lakewood Church tweeted: Coordinating with the city, Lakewood is a collection site for distributing…
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…usaders and Islamic conquerors. In this context, rigid adherence to liturgical customs became a means by which to assert and preserve identity in the face of colonization and oppression. Conversely, adherence to Christian practices abandoned by the Christian West—if not in the Middle Ages then certainly by the early Modern Period—came to symbolize the backwardness and even barbarity of the Christian East and was used to place Eastern Christians an…
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…ategy memo she’s painted as: a middle-aged hag who lives in a cave with her 800 cats; unqualified to lead because her womb’s as empty as Jesus’ tomb; and hatching a master plan to suppress the aromatic scent of electricity. If I weren’t merely an outside agitator, I’d be sure to only cast my ballot for someone who’s birthed their own children, just like all the previous presid— wait, what? Anyway, Kamala cackles like Satan or something. You see, i…
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