Religion Dispatches
…rn society, while in 2000 many of us find this not only easy but even inescapable?’” And Brooks’ inevitable spin: “That is, how did we move from the all encompassing sacred cosmos, to our current world in which faith is a choice, in which some people believe, others don’t and a lot are in the middle?” The first few graphs are pure Brooks—the doctrinal issue; the promise of evidence and explication; the faux humility in the face of an esteemed auth…
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…f religion and public life.” You might not have heard of First Things—the magazine’s circulation wouldn’t drain a bathtub and its web traffic is quite modest—but its slogan is no idle boast. First Things reports, comments, and offers perspective on the most pressing matters of politics, culture, religion, law, and philosophy from a conservative and (mostly) Catholic perspective. The publication is intellectually very serious—proof that ideas and c…
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…crosses cultural lines and stems from the a long tradition of pushing back against patriarchal Christianity. When Elizabeth Cady Stanton was fighting for women’s equality, she wrote an 1896 essay entitled, “The Degraded Status of Woman in the Bible.” The title says it all, but Stanton was never one to equivocate: “So far from woman owing what liberty she does enjoy to the Bible and the church, they have been the greatest block in the way of her de…
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…working for Middle East peace. I know that sounds strange. Israel is once again devastating Gaza. The Palestinian death toll is rising steadily. Even the more liberal Jewish-American groups like the Reform movement and J Street were at least initially sympathetic to Israel’s attack on Gaza, despite the fact that the attack (no doubt intentionally) destroyed a real chance for peace with Hamas. Despite talk of a truce, on every front the Israel-Pal…
Read More…s to affect educational curriculum through his organization Shiksha Bachao Aandolan Samiti (Movement to Save Education). For Mr. Batra, Doniger’s malicious act was her portrayal of a history of Hindus replete with eroticism, women, and unorthodox viewpoints. The suit gained momentum and in February 2014, Penguin books agreed to withdraw the book from India and destroy all remaining copies (although, all copies were bought before any were destroyed…
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…chool days. Speaking of colors, what color are we accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of being (or not being) today? Whether you consider her ‘Momala’ or ‘Copala,’ ‘QueenVP’ or ‘Homicidal Harris,’ one thing’s for certain: she’s Black. Or is she? One of the oldest critiques floating around the world wide web is that she is “Black when it’s convenient.” Similar to the birther craze that former President Barack Obama was subjected to before and dur…
Read More…s George of Chicago, who warned a few years back that the local gay pride parade might “morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan,” lives in a “one of a kind,” 19-chimneyed mansion in the heart of Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood conservatively valued at $14.3 million. And he is waited on by three nuns who live in a nearby coach house—very Downton Abbey. • Seattle Archbishop James Sartain, who is currently in charge of making sure that the naugh…
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…er this week the Times of Israel published a post, written by American Yochanan Gordon, titled “When Genocide is Permissible,” which concludes with the following question: If political leaders and military experts determine that the only way to achieve its goal of sustaining quiet is through genocide is it then permissible to achieve those responsible goals? Last week, the man gunning for the top spot at the Anti-Defamation League, New York Univer…
Read MoreWhile sanctimonious conservatives and godless liberals alike await the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Hobby Lobby case, two more suits with serious church and state implications are quietly making their way through the system. The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) is a group of “atheists, agnostics and skeptics” with a Scientology-esque fondness for litigation. Recently the FFRF has gone after the so-called “parsonage exemption,” which allow…
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Last week a six-week-old baby died in Suceava, Romania during his baptism into the Romanian Orthodox Church. The priest is being held on manslaughter charges and a firestorm of anger has begun to be directed at the Orthodox Church’s practice of full-immersion infant baptism, including a petition urging the Romanian church to change its practice. The Romanian Patriarch has said no such changes will occur. But neither the incident (no matter how tr…
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