Religion Dispatches
…church men and women are not equal.” After hymns and prayers, Ordain Women participants walked to elm-lined Temple Square, the heart of historic Mormonism and site of the Church’s General Conference. As men and boys streamed into the Tabernacle to take their seats for the evening meeting, women waited outside to ask for permission to enter. (For video, click here.) One by one, the women stepped forward to speak with LDS Church representative Doug…
Read More
…dissenters as villains, hooligans, and rioters regardless of their actual participation in any violent action and without consideration of underlying causes that may not justify but might explain the roots of what Darcus Howe insisted to BBC anchor Fiona Armstrong was no mere opportunistic rioting but “an insurrection of the masses of the people.” The Voice columnist’s deeper social assessment set Armstrong stammering into a line of offensive acc…
Read More…as been reduced to a kind of majordomo or personal assistant. He fixeth my parking tickets, he secureth me a good table in the restaurant, he leadeth me to book contracts. Even in these minor tasks, the invocation of God seems more of a courtesy than a necessity.” Gone, too, from Osteen’s theology is any mention of topics that might intrude on happy thoughts: Osteen avoids using current events in his messages so he doesn’t get sidetracked in contr…
Read More…half. There were still probably 80 empty seats, and it was clear that some number of attendees had free tickets. The largest financial supporter of the event was a local news/talk radio station and its representatives were the only media allowed in. As I arrived with my Religion Dispatches press badge they stopped me before I even got to the door. I chatted with an AP reporter and he said AP had been trying for weeks to gain media access—but that…
Read More
…ate and use to milk people out of some cash, also make them less likely to participate in the actual justice work that would eliminate poverty and injustice. Moral licensing allows us to justify not actually supporting breast cancer research because I already wore a pink sweatband at a softball game in October. I need not worry about indigenous coffee farmers being pushed off their land by corporate monsters because Starbucks offered fair trade co…
Read More
…onservative Republicans. In the film, he describes his “affinity” with Tea Party Republicans; McBath talks about her father, who for decades served as the president of the Illinois NAACP. Despite his dedication to both religious and political conservative orthodoxy, Schenck was having a crisis of faith over evangelicals’ devotion to guns. While McBath and Schenck were coming from very different places and experiences, politically, racially, and ev…
Read More…of God as a gay-hating bigot, their acceptance of themselves, for the most part, has proven easier. In reality, the only reason anyone is talking about “reparative therapy” is because religious beliefs have convinced far too many people that God will damn them for eternity if they pursue their natural inclinations toward the same gender. Here’s an idea: instead of fighting about how to change gay people into straight people, let’s shift the focus…
Read More
…nstitutions and spiritual movements need money. I’ve paid for High Holiday tickets, passed the plate at church, and dropped bills into the basket at yoga class. But Osho’s opacity and its denial of the obvious (robes and shampoos, wine and brownies, books and videos were all moneymakers) bothered me. My fuming was worthless. Orientation still started 45 minutes late. My students and I, packed into a classroom with 20 other guests, were led through…
Read More
…ut drag is that it challenges the gender binary and thereby challenges the patriarchal norms supported by Wendler. In illegally and unilaterally blocking an innocent drag fundraiser from taking place on campus, Wendler wasn’t defending women. He was discriminating against LGBTQ folks and defending Christian patriarchy. Reached for comment, WT student Marcus Stovall, vice president of Spectrum WT and president and founder of WT’s SSA chapter, calle…
Read More…ut, Boston went on, “That doesn’t appear to be the case here. The targeted pastors are not even parties to the lawsuit, and the scope of the subpoenas is strikingly broad. This has the look of a fishing expedition. I’m not surprised that the pastors are resisting the subpoenas, and, assuming there is not more to this story than has been reported, I think they might be successful.” Parker signaled today that she was surprised by the breadth of the…
Read More