Religion Dispatches
…details, and it is always difficult for an outside observer to detect the coded messages of an in-group. (Think of the McCain campaign’s disturbing “The One” attack ad, which basically called Obama the Antichrist—but on a frequency that only evangelicals reared on apocalyptic conspiracy theories could pick up.) Chellew-Hodge quotes the following catechism from an evangelical organization: 1. We believe the Bible to be the inspired, infallible, au…
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…ignificance is not support for communities of color or fairness in the tax code, but rather alignment with cosmic forces of enlightenment, it makes some sense. Post-millennial lefties tend to be really scary, or really wacky, or both. In pop culture, they inhabit films like Fight Club or the latest Batman flick: utopian idealists who will use any means, including violence, to bring about the transformation they seek. In practice, though, they tend…
Read More…e men from murdering women or to send a moral message. In the 1983 Revised Code of Canon Law, only two groups are protected. A Catholic may incur automatic excommunication if he or she attempts to assassinate the Pope (you don’t even need to succeed, just trying is enough) or if one successfully procures an abortion. Only fetuses and popes are worthy of consideration. The rest of us are on our own. Perhaps most cruel in the Brazilian case is the f…
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…lmed by emails from educators around the country accusing him of trying to promote religion. Indeed, the version of the resolution that passed the Senate and was amended in the House said, “Evidence relating to global climatic change is complex and subject to varying scientific interpretations,“ and that “all instruction in the public schools relating to global climatic change be presented in a balanced and objective manner.” For anyone who follow…
Read More…s, listening to speeches at the League of Women Voters, demonstrating with Code Pink and Le Front Des Lesbiennes Radicales, and generally gathering with other women to no good end. Now, I actually was there when the original plot was hatched, funnily enough: It was back in 1973, at the Women’s Exchange tea room in Eugene, Oregon. (To the public, it was billed as a Missionary Society presentation.) We had just finished singing a song about the weav…
Read More…the day in 1954 when the “Johnson amendment” language was put into the tax code was the day that “changed America” and set the stage for bad Supreme Court decisions and everything else that has gone wrong since the 1960s. Pulpit Freedom Sunday participants agree to preach political sermons, send them to the IRS, and dare the agency to sue them. The Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund) has offered legal help to c…
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…art of a discussion of workers’ rights, or to include Maimonides’ medieval code in a discussion of the death penalty, or to quote from the writings of twentieth-century Orthodox Rabbinical jurists to make a point about trying minors as adults. So what does this all mean? I would like to suggest that this marks the third stage in an evolution from a desacralized language of social justice to the current reclamation of the language of tradition. In…
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…Roman officials smiled on her. While variety is good, efforts like this to promote one way to be religious and eclipse go against the grain. Feminine Genius or Feminist Genius? A close look at the text leaves me disconcerted on three additional fronts. First, there is the essentialism. Women’s “feminine genius” is a patriarchal fiction. Yet, it is trotted out time and again by Pope Francis and those who would curry his favor. In this report, “comp…
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…of the duties of the Muslim ruler and established furthermore an elaborate code of conduct for initiating war. And this is where we must look deeper. Privileging the legal literature above other kinds of literature—particularly the exegetical literature on the Qur’an and ethical treatises—in discussions of jihad almost inevitably leads to the conclusion that it is primarily a collective military obligation incumbent upon able-bodied Muslim men in…
Read More…ruary, that Romney was replaced by this one: [W]ithout question, the legal code in this country is based upon Judeo-Christian values and teachings, Biblical teachings, and for the president not to understand that a wide array of religions and a conviction that Judeo-Christian philosophy is an integral part of our foundation is really an extraordinary thing. I think again that the president takes his philosophical leanings in this regard, not from…
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