Religion Dispatches
…ons like Christianity. Just weeks after refusing to offend Muslims, Comedy Central is now at work advancing a “comedy” that would mock the faith of those who call Jesus Christ their Lord and Savior. The show under production at Comedy Central is no laughing matter. It seeks to openly mock Jesus and essential Christian beliefs. This is nothing new for the tasteless cable channel, which has a history of depicting the Son of God in manners so disresp…
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…etings with Black religious leaders, part of an aggressive strategy by the Republican Party and conservative philanthropy aimed at African-American churches and, through them, black voters—the Democrats’ most loyal constituency, led to a number of black preachers receiving faith-based grants. After months of investigation, the Los Angeles Times reported in January 2005 that out of the more than $1.5 billion in federal funds handed out to faith-bas…
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…ably in its equally explicit rejection of a role in the political body for African Americans. […] Now that the fraud has been exposed and there is little, if any, agreement on what the American project is or should be, there is correspondingly less agreement on who ought to lead the nation. Without any flag waving on my part (and I do expect many of this year’s July 4 celebrations to be jingoistically repellent beyond belief), I want to propose th…
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…of immigrants from the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and South Asia and by African Americans, who converted to varying forms of Islam, some of which, such as the Nation of Islam, were distinctly a product of African American experiences. They built American mosques and Muslim institutions in such diverse places as Brooklyn, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Ross, North Dakota, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The mosque built in Cedar Rapids in 1934…
Read More…obal announced this week that they have “launched a month long tour of key African nations where LGBTI communities continue to experience extreme discrimination and persecution. These countries include: Uganda, Rwanda, Cote D’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo (“DRC”) and Kenya.” More from the press release: Until April 30, 2015, Pastor [Joseph]Tolton will be on the ground working to counter this effort and provide an uplifting alternate narrati…
Read More…operative Anti Homosexuality Law has not been a problem for him or Uganda. African Union: Anti-Gay Mugabe Appointed Chair Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, became chairman of the African Union, a position he will hold for the coming year, Pink News reports: In his speech, which drew applause, he said African countries should value relationships with “friends”, but that “colonialists and imperialists” were not welcome on the continent. Ahea…
Read More…nals study ‘appears to have been written by someone apparently lacking the African point of view.’” It is a recurring complaint from African prelates taking part in the three-week synod: there is little discussion of extended families, for example, while much is said of the family units of the West, made up of a father, mother and children. Time spent discussing the problem of lonely or abandoned elderly people also has little resonance in Africa,…
Read More…s would be arrested and prosecuted. Lokodo said the parade was designed to promote homosexuality to young people. “We are aware that there are inducements, including money, being offered to young people to promote the practice,” he said. Lawyer Nicholas Opiyo said he believed the minister was unaware that parade organizers had formally notified police of their intention to hold a public gathering. “In terms of the legal procedure, they ticked all…
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…denying that Judaism is a religion (instead, it’s an ideology, or a legal code, or an international cabal), and emphasizing definitions of Judaism rooted in physical heritage. This nudge toward biology makes sense. For one thing, it’s easier to judge somebody’s identity based on ancestry than on beliefs and cultural traditions. The latter is pretty nebulous. The former is quantifiable. Also, bigots haven’t historically cared much about the person…
Read More…cided to grab onto the phrase (not the reality) of “intelligent design” to promote religious doctrine. The board members, as in Livingston, Louisiana, were as ignorant of the limits of the scientific case against strict Darwinism as they were of the content of intelligent design theory. The scientists and political scientists at Discovery Institute—colleagues of mine—who actually know something about intelligent design, tried to dissuade them, but…
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