Religion Dispatches
…arshallese, Mongolian, Navajo, Palauan, Papiamento, Pohnpeian, Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Tahitian, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Yapese I’ll also be thinking about local translators sitting in their home countries, relaying translations back to the Conference Center to be combined with video for almost simultaneous rebroadcast in Aymara, Armenian, Cebuano, Czech, Danis…
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…rs would expect.) Sadly, I suspect that the aggressive PR tactics and hardball legal strategies deployed over the past few years by clerics who commit and conceal child sexual abuse have successfully intimidated many victims and whistleblowers, keeping them silent for fear of retribution. These factors, and others, led Belleville Bishop James Keleher and later, Bishop Wilton Gregory, to temporarily chart a surprisingly bold new course. For decades…
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…t very few people can achieve it. For laypersons, the goal is to avoid sexual misconduct. Buddhist rejections of same-sex desire and sexual activity are relatively rare, but, where they do occur, they must be understood as part of a more general suspicion of any expression of carnal desire. More generally, Buddhist moral appraisal of homosexuality varies with its host cultures. In places that are more accepting of homosexuality and gender variance…
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…y-directed worldview rhetoric is. It’s possible that this shift from internal mission-driven language to external advocacy-driven language represents a test balloon for FRC and the Christian Right. Will 2023 bring biblical worldview rhetoric into mainstream Christian right discourse? Will Christian-Right parishioners claim they can’t serve transgender customers at restaurants in opposition to state nondiscrimination law because their biblical worl…
Read More…he Republican base not realize there are a few end-times theories about Libya and the Arab Spring? Because if you’re going to go down in flames, you might as well, you know, go all out….
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…edia world in which news coverage of the individual Muslim’s actions metonymically represents Islam; not only throughout the globe today but also throughout its fourteen centuries of history. Pundits, Islamophobes, and Muslim apologists alike look to the Qur’an and the Islamic tradition as the source that could explain or condemn Mohamud’s actions, but his motives seem to make most sense in the context of this new media landscape in which, as Mars…
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…ury, one of the guiding assumptions of political theory was that more economically and infrastructurally advanced countries would inevitably become more secular. Today, researchers tend to recognize that the situation is more complex. As global connectivity increases, religious belief continues to wield tremendous influence. Religious voices and images flood public media; political leaders seek out religious audiences and institutions; and religio…
Read More…d much longer, or the Church.” Kenya: Activists File Court Challenge to Criminalization of Gay Sex Gay rights advocate Eric Gitari asked the High Court to overturn laws criminalizing gay sex on the grounds that they “violate constitutional rights to equality, dignity, and privacy,” reports Reuters. Bahamas: PM Says Proposed Equal Rights Amendment Would Not Legalize Gay Marriage Prime Minister Perry Christie forcefully declared that a proposed cons…
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…generating solidarities in the process, with the aim of producing a political alternative to the conventional status quo. This aspiration—the prospect of upending social and political structures, however understood—is something that critical theories and even right-wing forms of conspiratorial thought share, despite having deep differences. You point out that those who consume or share conspiracy theories often feel they exercise analytical rigor…
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…sparently contentless objections to the existence of ex-evangelicals are really all they have left. Well, that and the silly old apologist standby of “You really just left to have all that sweet, sweet, unbiblical sex, didn’t you?” Their protestations thus come across like one big, petulant Principal Skinner meme: “Am I so out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong.” Russell Moore, who recently left his position as head of the Southern Bapt…
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