Religion Dispatches
…hite, but the majority of those polled were women at 53 percent. While the numbers may seem surprising, in light of conservatives’ historically strong support for states’ rights on this issue perhaps they shouldn’t be. Potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates like Texas Congressman Ron Paul and former Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer are already talking about leaving marriage to the states. Paul said the bottom line is that government shou…
Read More…40 percent of Jews self-identify as liberal, this hatred targets us. Beck doesn’t care — and of course neither does Ailes — especially if Beck’s downward spiral into the darkest corners of the most vile conspiracy theories not only score political points but boost ratings and give Beck another scalp, like that of ACORN or Van Jones. Beck might very well be harboring delusions that he could bring down what he claims is the most powerfully dangerou…
Read More
…h Vietnam or the National Liberation Front (“Viet Cong”)—entities which he does not regard as “paragons of virtue.” Then King proceeds to make the antiwar case with unparalleled clarity, citing the reasons he’s calling for the slaughter in Southeast Asia to end: The war has eviscerated domestic anti-poverty efforts; war is always “the enemy of the poor.” War punishes the poor in a second way by sending the poorest to do the fighting and dying; Kin…
Read More
…f the total revenue of American religious congregations. To get that final number, the Grims took one estimate of the total number of congregations in America (344,894) and multiplied it by another estimate of the average revenue of each ($242,910). Depending on how you look at it, $378 billion is a lot of money, or it’s not very much money at all. It’s more than the net worth of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffet, combined…
Read More
…cting the law does not automatically mean that you are racist or mean; nor does a concern for a broken legal system mean you are naïve. Consensus can come in agreeing to be kind, not mean-spirited. It can also come when we start taking seriously the scriptural command about loving the other as yourself. Of course we can love people and still deport them, just like we can love a friend and disagree with her. Limits are necessary. We limit our love…
Read More
…tantly offered to dull the pain of our racial violence. This soothing high does not help. We need to end this war by unmasking whiteness, challenging our religious faith in competition, and dealing with the long painful history of white (especially male) frustration in a system which awards a very limited number of medals for achieving whiteness. We are all afraid of the copycats—unstable people who may, in the weeks and months ahead, follow Roof’…
Read More
…and gender ambiguities of choir directors? And last I checked, a critical number of black folk just love them some Tyler Perry Mable “Madea” Simmons (image right). The difference, historically and culturally, is that being black in America has proven to be enough of a social impediment. So the fact that many African Americans choose not to take the same risks as Elton John or T.R. Knight does not mean that black people on the ground are any less…
Read More
…believe that Jonah was swallowed by a whale and suicide bombings? The film doesn’t really make those connections, nor could it, because they don’t connect. The broader connections between belief and violence could have (and, I’d say, should have) been made, but it would have taken some much more careful consideration of the topic at hand. What Maher and filmmaking cohorts don’t appear to understand is that a person can be a Jew, have an enjoyable…
Read More
…the Old Testament because they’re long and boring…” Here pauses. “Granted, Numbers is like…” “I like Numbers, but anyway…” mumbles Caleb. “The real impetus for the game,” Thomas resumes, “is to get people to engage in Scripture and read stories they’ve never read before. When a concubine is cut up into twelve pieces, that imagery is really offensive. But a lot of people didn’t even know that story existed in the Bible.” I suspect they’re right; re…
Read More…for Marriage has set up on Wednesday nights and we assist with the larger phone bank at the Jewish synagogue downtown. A great deal of our work is communicating with Catholics on our email list and Facebook. As a Catholic, how does your faith shape your views on marriage for LGBT people? My faith blossomed in the 1960s after Vatican II. I had always been a very pious child, and my faith became about service to others and seeing everyone as a chil…
Read More