Religion Dispatches
…of 187. Actually, there is a significant ethnic and regional disparity when it comes to people in power in the Catholic Church. For example, while over one-third of Catholics are from Latin America, only 14% of cardinals are from that region. Conversely, half of cardinals are from Europe, while less than a fourth of Catholics are European. Nevertheless, similar disparities have been evident in the United States before this historic election. So, i…
Read More…h a person for whom no evidence of crimes has been provided. And it would offer him as a sacrificial lamb in order to make life easier for Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who, according to the CIA, ordered the murder of Khashoggi. The United States should be doing everything it can to distance itself from Salman and his autocratic Saudi regime, not get him off the hook—especially not through a deal that amounts to nothing more than human traffic…
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…elebrating the 400thanniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Americas. As Jeffrey Owen Jones writes: In Bellamy’s later accounts of the sultry August evening he composed the pledge, he said that he believed all along it should invoke allegiance. The idea was in part a response to the Civil War, a crisis of loyalty still fresh in the national memory. As Bellamy sat down at his desk, the opening words—”I pledge allegiance to my flag”—tumbled onto pap…
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…en Muslim immigrants to Western nations “evidence a desire to order their affairs, especially domestic affairs, by Shari’ah law rather than by the supposedly neutral law of a godless liberalism.” Fish is well-known for exposing the tensions between our political ideals and the practical demands of life in a pluralistic society. He does so in a way that is almost always entertaining and usually helpful, especially as a reminder that achieving justi…
Read More…Life League “The American people do not share Barack Obama’s extreme and offensive views on abortion. They never have and they never will. The coming four years will see a widening gap between the people and their President on this fundamental issue. As Americans come to know how extreme his position is, the intensity of the struggle to protect these children will only increase…” – A Grave Mistake and an Abiding Hope, Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests…
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…l but growing number of majority non-white voters, activists, and elected officials who’ve grown disillusioned with a Democratic party that has repeatedly ignored its populist roots and embraced neoliberalism. Currently, we face a reactionary right-wing that’s attempting to impose white minority rule based on three principles: God, Guns, and [control of the] Government. The first principle of this equation is God—or more accurately white Christian…
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…n has revived the so-called torture debate in the United States with some officials claiming bin Laden’s death proves torture works. John Yoo, a former Justice Department official who authored some of the “torture memos,” wrote Monday in the National Review that “President Obama can take credit, rightfully, for the success today, but he owes it to the tough decisions taken by the Bush administration.” Yoo made the same argument in the Wall Street…
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…” broken in Revelation unleashes God’s wrath on the earth. As journalist Jeff Sharlet notes, this moment was Trump’s “claim to divinity,” announcing his plans to visit legal violence upon his enemies. These enemies include immigrants from whom he has promised to “rescue” Americans, “millions” of whom Trump (falsely) insists have “invaded and conquered” towns across the United States, stealing and eating pets. Framing immigration in apocalyptic bib…
Read More…ed a public warning and restored funding to the school, which will remain affiliated with the church. The senate oversees all Methodist-affiliated seminaries. Claremont President Jerry Campbell said the change of heart came after the school managed to allay fears “that we were turning a United Methodist-related seminary into something very different.” The story points to something of the agony of seminaries these days. They can’t sustain the insti…
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…ing that Walz had upset conservative Christian leaders during his time in office in Minnesota and carefully explaining the difference between the ELCA and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, the United States’s next largest (and far more conservative) Lutheran body. The Christian Post took things further, declaring the ELCA “notoriously progressive” for, among other sins, endorsing Black Lives Matter policy proposals and implying on social media t…
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