Religion Dispatches
…hocks of Christian theological discourse—for good and for ill. Or, as Mark Jordan has been so helpful in helping me understand (through both his written work and his friendship), the only way to talk about Christian theology in a historical moment when theological language is so tainted with a history of cruelty and inhumane violence is by addressing it indirectly and obliquely. Or, to say it much less elegantly, I didn’t want to write a book that…
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…ican Whiteness: the gun. For the parents of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Renisha McBride, and countless others, the pain of their children’s sacrifice at the hands of the agents of the god of white supremacy in America cannot be healed. We who look upon this madness however, must begin to comprehend the full scope of the underlying issue at hand: America has never simply been land of the free and home of the brave. It is also the h…
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…ally, “gets” evangelical culture. Bush’s Right to Rise PAC recently signed Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, as a senior advisor—a move the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody called the move “a big get” for courting the evangelical vote. While Sekulow has been at the forefront of the culture wars, the ACLJ is also one of several religious right legal firms who, for example, brought legal chall…
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…rt of a congressional delegation whose itinerary includes Germany, Turkey, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Niger. As Jeff Sharlet has reported, Inhofe has long been the liaison between the secretive evangelical group the Family (aka the Fellowship), and Museveni. Sharlet has also reported that Inhofe ushered David Bahati, author of the anti-gay bill, into the group. Is this a U.S. taxpayer-funded mission trip for Inhofe? Lavers reports, by th…
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…en create hard times.” In the trailer to Carlson’s propaganda flick, which promotes racist anxiety about falling (White) birth rates caused by low sperm count in men who’ve grown too weak to procreate, the narrator’s voice rumbles “and so the cycle begins again.” The spiritual tone is no coincidence as I pointed out in a previous piece for Religion Dispatches: “[…] the video describes a form of traditionalism which Steve Bannon and Putin confidant…
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…visit to Sharjah and to Doha where there’s also interest. In Abu Dabi and Jordan there’s also interest. Many people are naturally slightly suspicious of the West. But there are many clerics in the Middle East, even in Iran, and Iraq, who have interest in this Charter. Now this won’t be headline news. We want people to get the Charter adopted in schools, and working in a quiet way. This is a kind of careful methodical work. So my friend has taken…
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“Children are the ways that the world begins again and again.” – June Jordan, The Creative Spirit and Children’s Literature (1977) Our daughter, Sophia, doesn’t know exactly what she wants to do when she becomes an adult—we keep telling her that circus contortionists aren’t necessarily in high demand—and she doesn’t know if she wants to get married. But our 11-year-old is joyously clear about one thing: she wants to be a mother. We think that u…
Read More…nizations; after the Washington Post hired Christian right lawyer-activist Jordan Sekulow as a blogger last month, Politico’s Ben Smith reported that Torossian, a “frequent Gawker target,” repeatedly pitched reporters with Sekulow’s implausible expertise in a wide variety of subjects.) Despite those denials, the Aish-Clarion ties were unmistakable in my 2008 reporting: In fact, at least six top Aish HaTorah officials are tied to “Obsession” via Ai…
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…re about the “film noir” feel of Caprica. It’s a cross between a 1930s pre-code movie and Metropolis. The cops, the smoking, the old-fashioned cars; I thought Caprica was supposed to be technologically savvy, not a cross between the future and the past. What does this say about its inhabitants—and the show’s creator? I agree with Diane, this week seems to be a placeholder for something to come, but in the process, I did not learn much. To be fair…
Read More…mad said, is charity. But Gaffney et al. portray shari’ah as a fixed legal code that a fifth column of “adherents” seek to implement in place of the Constitution (somehow, they don’t explain how one Muslim in Congress or the less than one percent of the U.S. adult population that is Muslim would accomplish this). Gaffney told the audience for his talk, which was directed at Congressional staffers: [I]n fact we are looking at a mortal threat to the…
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