Religion Dispatches
…ncer replied “mine is countering your hate & defamation w/ truth abt Islam & Hamas-linked CAIR.” By coming out and saying he practices “jihad,” we are left with two choices: by his definition he hates America and should be arrested, or he has been manipulating the meaning of the word to make money by demonizing a group of Americans (therefore hating on America). Either way, we now have confirmation from Spencer’s own mouth that he is not to be tru…
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…fer’s critique: A nation became Christian and Lutheran but at the cost of true discipleship. The price it was called upon to pay was all too cheap…We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale; we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition…Was there ever a more terrible and disastrous instance of Christianizing the world than this? It’s regrettable, I think, that “cheap grace” has turned into a kind of meme tha…
Read More…indeed? And it’s particularly odd if you take the bill’s sponsors at their word that SB-1433 is just a “statement of purpose.” This is the line that Rep. Billy and Sen. Brian Crain, the sponsors of SB-1433, have both taken, and it strikes me as more and more bizarre the more I hear it. If the bill is intended only to express a certain position, and if Billy and Crain are both confident that that position leaves birth control and IVF alone… well, w…
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…nds in the country happen to be on our side.” And there’s shot of Rosalind Russel with a huge crucifix behind her, and she says, “God is on ours.” And that’s how I often see those things. They think they have God on their side. The comments I get about LGBT issues are the worst by far. It is just shocking how many people think just being LGBT is a sin, how many people think they need to be condemned, and how many people who say “Hate the sin and l…
Read More…he’s trying to speak to his own base—which is likely, given his use of the word “bureaucrat”—he’s got their fears all wrong. Conservatives aren’t saying they’re worried about “bureaucrats” taking their contraceptives away, conservatives are saying they’re worried that “bureaucrats” will force God-fearing religious folks to provide insurance coverage for sinful behavior. It’s classic Romney-speak: (1) straw man (“bureaucrats”) + (2) straw issue (“…
Read More…l hero, not even as a divine invader of humanity, but as a God presence, a new dimension, even a new vision, of what human life was meant to be.” Mohler’s personal attacks would be no surprise to Bishop Spong, and he doesn’t have to violate his manifesto to answer him. It’s right there on page 24 of Sins of Scripture: “The constant attack of these right wing voices on Christian scholarship is a clear tip-off that they cannot face reality. When peo…
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…n their home city of Cuernavaca, Morelos. Javier Sicilia received the heartbreaking news while attending a conference in the Philippines. He recalls chain-smoking a pack of cigarettes after hearing the report, unsure of his next move. On returning to Mexico, Sicilia laid his son to rest. At the memorial he read a poem: The world is not worthy of words they have been suffocated from the inside as they suffocated you, as they tore apart your lungs……
Read More…y demonstrated by Elder Deiter F. Uchtdorf when he admits “there have been times when members or leaders in the Church have simply made mistakes. There may have been things said or done that were not in harmony with our values, principles, or doctrine” is one reason he is respected and trusted by so many in and outside the church. But Stevens asks what we should do with that admission. “Now that Uchtdorf has opened that door, I want to walk throug…
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…ents in the statehouses, he’s not going to endorse abortion, he’s going to run the world by the word of God and the world will never end. It’s going to become a Garden of Eden, and Christ is going to rule it. No doubt Netanyahu wants someone more pliable in the White House, and he’s got friends here who want to help him do it. After the Israeli leader met with the American president, Hagee’s organization, Christians United for Israel, emailed memb…
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…elcome their hatred.” It should be noted that the appropriate response to Trump’s fusillades is not pettiness and mockery of Trump and his entourage; there’s no need to adopt what we decry. But politeness is a vicious quality when it suppresses righteous anger, when it offends truth by muted acquiescence to lies, when it disrespects your adversaries by sparing them corrective and bold critique. Such cowering politeness is nothing more than the “re…
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