Religion Dispatches
…re essentially Christian Zionists. Their “homeland” mentality was quite un-American. True, many American groups, not just hyperreligious ones, have looked upon the United States as a providential nation; a place prepared for them by God. But a providential nation is different than a providential homeland. The word “homeland” has become so charged—and now so banal—since 9/11 that we have forgotten that the United States is, in terms of political sc…
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…gressive gains merits more than our attention; it calls for action to help Americans understand just how dramatically right-wing reactionaries intend to transform American society, and how to effectively mobilize resistance to their well-funded schemes. Endnotes [1] Jill Covan and Bill Barrow, “Trump vow to only be a dictator on ‘day one’ follows growing worry over his authoritarian rhetoric,” Associated Press, December 7, 2023, https://apnews.c…
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…civil disobedience and goes to jail to help stop war or nuclear weapons. A number of the questions are clearly designed to elicit answers the Vatican knows full well it won’t like. The data will provide the pretext for concluding that the decline in numbers in progressive groups is a result of their lack of obedience and conformity to the men’s rules. Solution: tighten up the ranks. Enter the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, the alte…
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…ers in our society that depictions of Jesus as embodied divinity matter to American Christians. Understanding this theological crisis for American Christians is paramount if we seek to address the deployment of “White Jesus” as an imposition of white supremacy in theological form. In a follow up tweet Shaun King makes the declaration, All murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends should also…
Read More…tiny community of Messianic Jews, whose efforts, in turn, are supported by American conservative Christians. To the extent American evangelicals are supporting the growth of Messianic Judaism in Israel, it appears to be far more focused on bringing Jews to Christ than challenging Israel’s abortion laws. The Messianic Jews focus their efforts on another American export: the crisis pregnancy center. But the crisis pregnancy center is not the phenome…
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…ders hoping to gain insight into what it actually might mean to live as an American Catholic who was not a member of the clergy were better served elsewhere. Through much of its history, Time’s blind spot to certain kinds of Catholic stories was compensated by its sister publication, which came to being at the suggestion of Clare Boothe Luce. Perhaps one of the most influential Catholic converts in American history, she had learned the faith at th…
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…2,223 people have been killed in gun-related incidents in the U.S. and the number of people fatally shot by American police officers approaches 1,000. Pointing out a national moral failure and theological treason is not “prayer shaming.” We must raise our voices in the key of hope until Capitol Hill sees what we see: preventable social and personal pain caused by guns. I am reminded that as Jesus prepared his disciples for his death (a state-spons…
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…to the popular audience. A recent Harris poll reported that 42 percent of Americans believe in ghosts. Whether one believes in ghosts or not, Americans are fascinated by them. A century and a half before the popularity of ghost-hunter shows on the SyFy Network and NBC’s award-winning show “Medium,” belief in spirit communication was serious and widespread in the United States. New Orleans in particular is known for ghosts and spirits, and this bo…
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…aism, on a sociological note. Given the rate of intermarriage among Jewish Americans and the ways in which American culture no longer is content with prescripted roles for varying ethnic groups, Magid infers that American Jews now live in a postethnic culture. The ways in which Jews perform their particularism vary widely. In one way or another, all Jewish Americans today are Jews by choice, defining their identity as opposed to accepting others’…
Read More…versus-them package: that Obama doesn’t understand the divine roots of the American founding, probably because he’s not really a Christian and not really an American, and only by electing the likes of Michele Bachmann or Jim DeMint can we ensure that the Christian nation ship can be righted again. By framing the confrontation of this narrative as an “uphill battle,” Democrats make the enormous and unnecessary mistake of placing themselves in the p…
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