Religion Dispatches
…s?” Or does it cause me to view the Bible as merely another supernatural mythos lying behind a fantasy-based experience that distracts me from ordinary daily responsibilities or activities? I won’t be able to resist entering the fray when the beta version is released today, if only to see how we as a culture we are trying to figure out the relationship between play, theology, and performance of belief. If you’re curious to learn of my progress, yo…
Read More…ted a church that delivered on its promises of inclusion, tolerance, and love and were failed so profoundly by churches in the stranglehold of homophobic rhetoric and abuse. Young people are repulsed by it. And if this atheist had to venture a guess, I bet that Jesus would be too….
Read More…d the Mormon Church by uniting with Glenn Beck in the two events that were promoted as spiritual. Cameron, known also for his part on the television series Growing Pains and more recently nicknamed Banana-man (along with Ray Comfort) for the anti-evolution DVDs that became the source of tremendous internet humor, said he hadn’t actually been invited to be part of Divine Destiny. But he declined anyway: I had heard that there were plans to put me o…
Read More…or of the Senate, asserting that America was on the road to moral ruin because of the separation of church and state. In the speech, Miller backed former Judge Roy Moore (of Ten Commandments fame) and the crafters of the Constitution Restoration Act, which would have stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to hear Establishment Clause claims. He said: I stand shoulder to shoulder, not only with my Senate cosponsors and Chief Justice Roy Moore of A…
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…cause of her hallucinations. Sister Clarice, intrigued by Amanda, both because of her visions and because she’s Zoe’s mother, starts to talk to her about God’s protection and love. I was struck by how the language used was , well so evangelical in this sequence. Even more intriguing, the one true God is male. As more of the STO religion is revealed, I hold out hope that the religious complex will get more interesting .It is not the religious compl…
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…(I would disagree with BU’s characterization as ‘awful’, seeing as we all used/abused the term to some degree), but has become more of a burden as time has gone on. Any label is usually exclusionary, and artists usually hate them. I most certainly believe in an afterlife, and would call myself a Muslim. HR: This question of blasphemous content is so interesting, because there is such a long history of these types of lyrics and approaches in Islam…
Read More…were often mistaken for sisters – and still are. People recognize the bond between us, but often hesitate to recognize – or completely deny – the reality of that bond. I know of gay men, lesbians, and transgender people who have been harassed, accosted, even beaten up, because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, or even a perception of “deviance.” A dear friend of mine lost her son several years ago in Greenville, South Carolina. He wa…
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…alking about the rest of us.) As far as students go, they need to practice noticing and talking about the skills and habits they’re getting in religious studies. They’ll have to articulate these things to their parents and prospective employers. I bet they can do it better than I have. When they do, they’ll be a lot more ready to take over the world, and that will be a good thing. This essay is based on a talk given to Brown University undergradua…
Read More…about Mormonism is not easy for multigenerational Mormons like Romney, because faith is also family, ancestry, ethnicity, and culture. Romney hails from a storied family at the core of Mormon culture. He is a man who probably donated about 20 hours per week of his time to Church affairs during his service as a lay congregational and regional church leader. It has been one of the prime definers of his personal identity. But what happens when a risk…
Read More…The result, though, is it makes it easier to legally shoot people. Now, I bet you see where this is going. The column is so terrific it really needs to be read in its entirety. Seriously. Read it. But Argento does see a potential downside to the plan. Of course, some people may object because of all of that stuff in the Bible about caring for the poor and being your brother’s keeper and such. They may point to the Sermon on the Mount, in which Je…
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