Religion Dispatches
…to make credible their continued fixation on Christian persecution in the military, as they have before. And when that story turns out to be untrue or half-true, they’ll already be moving on to the next one….
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…ivists who use religion in service of their agenda. And in the wake of the video of Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women, progressive groups like Catholic Democrats have called on the advisory group to repudiate Trump. “As Catholics, we have a special obligation to make our voices heard when we see any individual use a position of power to sexually exploit another,” said Steve Krueger, president of Catholic Democrats. “Catholics are all…
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…nished, and the public policy implications thereof. “[T]here are clearly structural factors that enable sexual abuse, including patriarchal power structures,” she said. However, “sexual abuse is also so incredibly common but also so sensationalized that we will see it (or not see it ) however we are primed to, by our prior experiences.” Common is right: according to the Department of Justice, in the United States 1 in 6 boys and 1 in 4 girls are s…
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…ho have honestly and openly expressed joyful satisfaction upon hearing the news of Trump’s diagnosis. I certainly did. One nonagenarian who has specialized in social justice work all her life said that if her legs would permit it she would have danced when she heard of the diagnosis. A corrupt Republican-controlled Senate will stand by as Trump’s malfeasance in office spreads havoc from caged children torn from their parents’ arms to the most mism…
Read More…ck in the news this week. The Libertarian/Republican with Christian Reconstructionist ties angered many on the right by defending the WikiLeaks release of classified information. But he remains a Tea Party favorite for his calls to end, or at least audit, the Federal Reserve Board. Paul, who suggested that there is a 50-50 chance he will run again for president in 2012, barely made it out of single digits in 2008. His chances may or may not be imp…
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…r, the leak revealed two things: first, that tensions at the Vatican still run deep, and that clergy who serve the Pope are not innocent when it comes to betraying one another’s trust. And second, that leaks of any sort, from Wiki to Vati to pretty much any album released by a musician since the advent of MP3s present a dilemma to writers. Our decisions to cover leaks have repercussions, both good and bad. In the end, Encyclileak flared briefly, o…
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…e live in, but I don’t think it should be too surprising that evangelicals rushed to the side of Trump. He speaks in the same language of the culture war and resentment/grievance that they have harbored for a very long time. It seems to me, too, that the evangelical commitment to non-stop moral panics has helped to give us Trump. They are constantly identifying social evils that will lead to the end of Western civilization—rock ‘n’ roll, of course…
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…uthority and loyalty. The series’ premise is the rise of the Antichrist to ruler of the world: as head of the dreaded United Nations, the Antichrist’s earthly government challenges the will of God, but also usurps the proper authority that God’s chosen people—conservative White Christians in this supersessionist series—once did and still should have in America. The LBCU is as much a part of the conservative White Christian threat industry as it is…
Read More…then, Romney even came in for criticism from the LDS Church-owned Deseret News, in an editorial with the unfortunate title “The nasty taint of porn.”) I don’t buy it. Anyone who understands the traction of evangelical anti-Mormon sentiment knows that most evangelical voters will never vote for Mitt Romney, especially if they have a choice in someone like Mike Huckabee. Marriott dropping porn won’t begin to make a dent in Romney’s (or even Hunts…
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…out, all this was just a harbinger for the next round of horoscope-related news, a media meteor shower that began last Thursday with a press release from Illinois-based Allstate Insurance containing tabulated data on insurance reports and star signs, proving that Scorpios were the safest drivers, Virgos the worst. In second-best spot were the Ophiuchuses of the world, those being folks born in the thirteenth month, under the thirteenth sign, a guy…
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