Religion Dispatches
…the New Republic, observed how the mainstream media, and particularly the New York Times, misuse the word “Christian,” using it as a synonym for “Christian Right” or “Christian conservative.” Seventy-eight percent of the American population, he points out, identify as Christians, though far fewer fit into those sub-categories. Roughly one-third of that 78% call themselves evangelicals. And, while referring to a particular group as evangelical may…
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…ailed to secure the bonus that was promised to the first to sight land. 7. New York City Some Muslims and Jews were expelled from Catholic Spain as early as the 11th century—the last descendants of Muslims were driven out between 1609 and 1614—and some of these made common cause with a Spanish dependency, the Netherlands, which converted to Protestantism and likewise resented religious hegemony. (How the tables have turned.) Protestant Dutch and N…
Read More…ian report noted, Anglican churches in Uganda and Nigeria have backed the brutal new criminal penalties imposed on gay people in those countries. Mormons: Apostle Affirms Commitment to One Man-One Woman Marriage Mormon Apostle Neil Andersen, speaking at a biannual national conference in Salt Lake City, affirmed the church’s opposition to same-sex marriage. “While many governments and well-meaning individuals have redefined marriage, the Lord h…
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…aight world slowly adopted the term “gay” in the 1980s). In 1963, when the New York Times ran a front-page story on the growing presence of homosexuals in the city, the subtext was hostile, citing the “growing concern of psychiatrists, religious leaders and the police.” Soon afterward, when homosexuals organized protests against discriminatory employment practices, police entrapment, and raids on gay bars, the press paid scant attention. Even the…
Read More…iated the wedding of two men in Badalona, Spain, last Saturday. At Morocco World News, Karla Dieseldorff writes, “An image of Taleb dressed in hijab, next to the newlywed couple at the city town hall has made the rounds on social media networks stirring outrage and receiving all kinds of comments.” Fátima Taleb, 39, is the first ever Muslim woman to be elected councilor in Guanyem Badalona, in eastern Catalonia, Spain, according to Spanish newspap…
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…born. Forced to flee the impending violence of World War I, they sailed to New York and settled on Long Island, where they rode out the Great War with extended family. Merton’s mother died in 1921 when he was only six years old. His father left him the following year, in pursuit of an unlikely romance. The precocious young man was installed in a French boarding school for a couple of years, returning to live with his father until the artist succum…
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…hey’ve just been sitting around. Apocalypticism has inspired evangelistic crusades, moral reform movements, and generations of political activism. In his latest book, Matthew Avery Sutton, a professor of history at Washington State University, traces this history of American evangelical apocalypticism from the end of the 19th century to the present day. In the process, he proposes a revised understanding of American evangelicalism, focused on the…
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…g classrooms and rituals of community life, on the courage and goodness of New Yorkers, and on the horrific event that has shaped a generation of American Muslim life. Hussein Rashid_________ September 11, 2001. The day I became Muslim. That’s a lie. I am now a Muslim. I was not always. America made me Muslim. I was born into a Muslim family. Like all good children of immigrants, I rebelled. By the time I was 16, I was a firm Marxist, rejecting…
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…ion, and urbanization. Families flocked to Borsodi wanting to learn how to live sustainable lives of self-sufficiency, not just escape to the woods for an extended hermitage or journey of self-discovery, as Thoreau had. Watching as inflation siphoned away nest eggs tucked into savings accounts in the 1970s led to a large-scale interest in investing in the tangible asset of land. The Nearings taught their acolytes how to invest in soil and get one…
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…pro-choice advocates. Dr. Patrick Johnson, a key organizer with Personhood USA, writing on the conservative website WorldNetDaily: “The advocates of the Heartbeat Bill have proven their willingness to push one person out of the boat to try to save another. How? By way of the bill’s exceptions, its inappropriate penalties, and its counterfeit moral standard.” Phil Burress, a supporter of the Heartbeat Bill and member of the Ohio Pro Life Action exe…
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