Religion Dispatches
…ripture citation on Tebow’s eye-black didn’t make in onto the cover of the latest NCAA football video game. Perhaps to capitalize on the new evangelical football star in Denver, Focus on the Family will be airing ads during Broncos games this season. Which prompts the question, is football its own religion? Does the black church keep black women single? Julia Roberts has become a “practicing Hindu” after spending time in India shooting her latest…
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…se with Zizek’s restatement of his critique of “anti-anti-Semitism” in his latest book, Violence (Picador, 2008). In it, he takes up the case of historian David Irving, who was sentenced to three years in prison in Austria for a 1989 interview doubting the existence of the Auschwitz gas chambers. Zizek attacks Irving’s imprisonment on the grounds that criminalizing his doubt of the Shoah is “the most refined and perverted version of Holocaust deni…
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…f they’re not essential to the faith itself?” I might recommend Robinson’s latest novel Home. “Read this,” I’d say, “and it might give you a clue.” But if my inquisitive friend were not so much interested in religious matters as in the possibilities of fiction or in my own opinion as to what describes a great writer of fiction, I would hand him or her the two novels at once. “Read these,” I’d say, “and then consider that the same person was capabl…
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…omanage. Intoxicated by the prospect of total situation awareness that the latest satellites and computer networks offer, they still insist on the possibility of running a war from thousands of miles away. Nowhere is this habit more evident than in the unmanned drones that chase the Taliban with Hellfire missiles, controlled by pilots safe and sound in the Nevada desert. With every headline about a village full of civilians pulverized by these mac…
Read More…scriminated against, it’s because the jig is up, and with Rekers being the latest in a line of “ex-gay” proponents defecting from the program or being outed as being what they profess to cure, the National PTA can spot a charlatan. Griggs isn’t done yet, though. This rejection can only mean one thing: “The PTA has become a left-wing advocacy group instead of serving the needs of all children,” said Griggs. Hardly. Only a quick gander at the speake…
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…who has written about the civic engagement of African-American women in my latest book, Rev. Cook’s scattered resumé lacks the distinction of other notable black women historically involved in both religious affairs and international engagement, such as Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, civil rights leader, and founder of the National Council of Negro Women, or Sue Bailey Thurman, who was committed to inter-religious and interracial understanding (sh…
Read More…twork executed a French aid worker taken hostage in April. Bus ads are the latest arena for debate between Muslim and anti-Islamic groups. One ad from a Muslim group reads, “The way of life of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Islam. Got questions? Get answers.” Meanwhile an ad from Stop Islamization of American responded, “Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got questions? Get answers!” P…
Read MoreOn the latest episode of my Bloggingheads show, I discuss this with Sarah Wildman: In the rest of the program, we discuss the neoconservative Emergency Committee for Israel ad aimed at demonizing (and defunding) the Center for American Progress and Media Matters for America; how issues relating to Israel-Palestine get discussed among American Jews; and Wildman’s excellent piece about the web magazine 972, published in the current issue of the Nat…
Read More…ope know how to reach the kids. There’s the Italian DJ priest spinning the latest from Lady Gaga. Then there’s the skateboarding priest in Hungary. Awesome. Even more awesome: pilgrimages on a motorcycle. 10,000 motorcyclists took part in the festival of the Madonna of the Bikers in Porcaro, France. Christian Scientists want spiritual care covered in the federal health package. A new law in North Carolina requires schools and colleges to give stud…
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…mong a small set of evangelicals who opposed Trump from the start, but the latest rounds demonstrate an even greater propensity to rewrite history and recent events in an attempt to disconnect evangelicals from the rise of Trump. Back in February, as Trump began to win state primaries with the help of white evangelical support, Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post that he had taken to calling h…
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