Religion Dispatches
…spot to commit suicide. I was fifteen years old and was struggling with a new word that I had learned: “lesbian.” I knew it was word that applied to me—and the more vernacular “dyke” that I had been called by some classmates. I didn’t like either of them. “Lesbian” sounded like a horrible disease (no offense to natives of Lesbos), and “dyke” was not yet an epithet I had learned to love for its amazing power and strength. After dark, when the down…
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…he Feast of All Saints, and then the Feast of All Souls. So it’s neither a new anxiety, nor a new response, for Christian communities to eye the season warily and to try to shoo everyone back into their seats. This shouldn’t be much of a surprise. After all, “lightening up” has really never been the Church’s thing. Not for nothing, many would say that it’s a perennial challenge for Christians to reconcile the claims (and cultural narratives) of fa…
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…s actually doing. No loving person would endorse this prohibition if they knew the truth. Is the traditional prohibition on homosexual intimacy like that? I think so. And the reason I think so is because, for many years now, I’ve been listening to my gay and lesbian neighbors. I’ve listened to their stories and tried to put myself in their shoes. I’ve heard how the prohibition on “homosexuality” cuts deeper than a mere condemnation of a specific a…
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…to the 1619 Project, developed by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones with the New York Times Magazine. Martin Strother, Education Director at Indiana Family Institute, explains how he applies lessons from Cawvey’s win in Kansas in order to offer advice for other conservative Christians to influence school boards. “Some are called to run for school board,” he explains, “and some are called to be a team of support for those candidates. Build relationsh…
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…the “if I don’t see you, you don’t exist” head turn, and the “if only you knew the truth” condescension. Yet there have also been, as Chair Jane Nelson of the Senate HHS Committee noted during the SB1 hearing, gestures of care and concern, color-blind gestures. Perhaps these acts were merely tactical, the “kill them with kindness” ploy. Or maybe, these moments, however rare, however fleeting, offer a glimpse of generous and yet-to-be realized coal…
Read More…“resurrected saints” who will “possess supernatural abilities.” When Jesus rules as “King over all dominions and spheres of society,” these resurrected saints will rule with him, “as kings and priests.” Bickle is a major figure in what is known as charismatic Christianity, a sprawling movement with no clear organizational structure or hierarchy, led by magnetic and often authoritarian figures who proclaim themselves to be modern-day prophets and a…
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…g support in the text of the First Amendment, but also that it is the only rule that truly makes sense for us as Americans. What good would come from permitting government to sneak a little (or a lot of) religion in here and there? As Justice O’Connor has said: “Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has serv…
Read More…is better than your religion.” Truth is a tall order. Good thing I’m the ‘truth’ out of the truth and dare question. Here’s the thing: I read the Qur’an to command honesty and integrity in all of your affairs. So, it is not whether we agree, but whether I follow through with what I say I am all about. It’s also about consistency between the inner and the outer. In doing gender work, this applies to the relationship between the public and the priva…
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…havez terminated the fast—his longest ever at thirty-six days, a duration trumping even those undergone by Gandhi, his Indian guru. Like Gandhi, Chavez staged three public fasts, including the “Love Fast,” begun on February 14, 1968, which ended twenty-five days later with an ecumenical mass in which he broke bread with Robert Kennedy. Each of Chavez’s three public rituals was dubbed a “spiritual fast,” during which he took communion from priests…
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…nd exciting side of 21st century blares out in the lead article in today’s New York Times: “Rare Sharing of Data Led to Results in Alzheimer’s: Collaboration Between Science and Industry Seen as Model for Parkinson’s Studies.” Here is science at its biggest and collaborative best. Here we have the vast private biotechnology and pharmaceutical enterprise—much of it spawned by the legislative changes I mentioned—collaborating with university researc…
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