Religion Dispatches
…r of positive thinking, and attainable middle class prosperity of the post-World War II era, the Word of Faith movement took hold in the 1950s followed by a doctrinal merger with televangelist Oral Roberts’ seed-faith theology in the 1960s. With the explosion of religious broadcasting in the 1970s, the result today is seen not only in the preaching of Hagee and Parsley, but also in most of the country’s leading televangelists and their imitators,…
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…the same thing in 1990. But few will notice. All we’ll remember is the bad news. We’re addicted to bad news, always convinced disaster is just around the corner, unable to recognize good news when it stares us in the face. Worse, we obsess on the headlines but don’t bother reading the details. Folks, the news this week is that the Jewish community is growing, not declining. While nobody was looking, the children of intermarriage in 1990 grew up an…
Read MoreState Sen. Ruben Diaz has declared war on marriage equality in New York. As gay and lesbian couples marched down the aisle or stood before state officials as same-sex marriages began in the state, Diaz was leading one of the protest marches organized by the National Organization for Marriage. “Today we start the battle! Today we start the war!” Diaz shouted after protestors marched from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office to the United Nations. That war…
Read More…state of disbelief and objectivity into a realm of complicity. In a recent New York Times interview, co-writer Damon Lindelhof suggests, One of the things that we completely own is that in many ways Lost is a mash-up/remix of our favorite stories, whether that’s Bible stories from Sunday school or Narnia or Star Wars or the writings of John Steinbeck. Carlton and I both had to take philosophy classes when we were in college, and we talk about phil…
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…hel family. The Passover when, though King was dead—because he was dead—he lived in thousands of seders across America, including mine. A living proof of death and rebirth, if not of resurrection. And others who like Heschel had kept the Burning Bush aflame, even when their passion was criticized by colleagues—as indeed Heschel’s colleagues at the Jewish Theological Seminary did, scorning his activist passion even while they admired his theology a…
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…recommendation earlier this year of Tara “T.C.” Morrow, a married lesbian, New York’s BOOM announced this week that “it would not consider sexual orientation in evaluating a clergy candidate, even if that individual has a spouse of the same gender.” While each candidate must also be approved by their annual conference clergy session, the stance of these two BOOMs is a phenomenal advance for the rights of LGBTQ persons within the denomination. The…
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…list elites who have planned and prepared for this opportunity to impose a new world order: a new global government with a new economic system. In the spiritual context he will be enacting a Satanic plot to usurp the role and identity of the Messiah and gain the adulation of the world. Wielding great military power this self-aggrandizing human savior will force an end to war and impose a secular humanist paradigm and religious pluralism as a remed…
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…—a body politic. The next question was how to establish enduring forms and rules for running that body. The answer was a period of constitutional framing that served as the imperfect but as yet unrivaled launch of the American states and subsequent national union. Thus, in the time even before the beginning of the United States, it was not discipline or Christianity or narrow focus on the family that kept the Pilgrims strong: it was faith in each…
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…, the narrative of terror shapes the world views of jihadists and the new crusaders” and is drawn from wellsprings “that are not too far apart,” said, the Jesuit journal reviewed by the Vatican before publication. The article, appearing in the mid-July/August edition and released online July 13, was written by the journal’s editor, Jesuit Father Antonio Spadaro, and Marcelo Figueroa, an evangelical Christian, who is the director of the Argentine e…
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…y over the treatment of an Indian diplomat by law enforcement officials in New York, a senior leader of India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has called for the arrest of gay American diplomats. Chile: Pro-Equality Bachelet Returns as President In a race that gave voters a choice between two women vying for the presidency, Chilean voters on December 15 overwhelmingly elected former President Michelle Bachelet, a supporter of marriage…
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