Religion Dispatches
…posing Michigan’s informed consent law. More chapter houses are opening in San Antonio and other cities around the country. The Detroit Free Press featured an interview with one Tom Raspotnik, an independent Satanist. Raspotnik described himself as a “tea party” Satanist who opposed the progressivism and atheism espoused by The Satanic Temple. He asserted that Satan is a real entity that he sacrifices goats to. Greaves has characterized Raspotnik…
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…ired rhetoric of liberal bias. But the point here isn’t to bean count partisan representatives on All Things Considered, but to look at the kinds of religious rhetoric behind attacks such as Lamborn’s. The real animus is toward projects of civil conversation in a public realm not dictated by “market forces” and corporate media. An example comes in religion, where public radio is one of the few venues of electronic media where thoughtful and extend…
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…They might as well protect us from the “establishment” of widget and the “free exercise” thereof. Both are meaningless, since neither “widget” nor “religion” point to anything specific. Linker, on the other hand, takes the exact opposite tack: he legislates the meaning of “religion” as those particular referents marked by the creation of “norms and practices establishing a comprehensive way of life” and so on, based upon “revelation, mystical int…
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…ished around the Man as it ignites and burns, once it collapses people are free to surge toward and dance around the pyre.) My nieces puzzled over this for a moment, and soon realized this anonymous individual was indeed shouting “theater” in the midst of a rather “crowded fire.” When they told me this story later that night, I immediately seized on it as the title of what was at the time my dissertation as I thought it spoke brilliantly and provo…
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…at teaching this nation’s Christian heritage. “This is a guy talking about freedom of religion as part of the history of the United States,” said Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network. “And what happened to Ann Hutchinson is why separation of church and state is so important. And now they want that example taken out of the standards.” “It’s a perfect example of censoring ideas you don’t like and distorting history to feed an agenda.” Panel Leader…
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…well as their bodies and their polities, are shackled; they will never be free unless or until they embrace freedom as an absolute, unqualified good. In light of this genealogy, one must recognize the beguiling simplicity of the blame game—that ‘rage’ is entirely the problem of those enraged. They are not like us. They take religion to be a sacred cow, while we know that freedom of expression is the first, fundamental, basis of democracy, and tha…
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…a tiny bit of populist pushback today, it still remains the case that the free markets/deregulation/low taxation creed enjoys a sanctified status among millions of America’s twice-born. Jews and Roman Catholics still show some degree of theological/ethical resistance to market fundamentalism, whereas mainline Protestants are almost as split on economics as they are on LGBT justice claims. (One of the ongoing tragicomedies of the mainline world is…
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…same alumni support. But, whereas many in Hillel want to bring officially sanctioned Israeli diplomats and others to campus to silence critique or otherwise preach to the converted, I want a position in Israel Studies that will contextualize, explain, and analyze the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for all students. Hillel is also very wealthy organization, something that further reinforces the status quo. Those local Hillels (Swarthmore, for exampl…
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…. If the First Amendment has been interpreted to guarantee a corporation’s free speech rights, does it also have free religious exercise rights guaranteed by the same Amendment? Annex Medical claims it does, citing as evidence its formal Mission Statement to manufacture medical products of high quality and good value, while conducting business in a way that is pleasing to God and is faithful to Biblical principles and values. We will accomplish th…
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…ders must meet are “maintain[ing] a pro-life mission and agree[ing] not to promote, refer, or counsel in favor of abortion or abortifacients as an option to a crisis or unplanned pregnancy” and “agree[ing] not to promote the teaching or philosophy of any religion while providing services to the client.” Yet most, if not all, of the centers maintain that Christian faith is central to their mission. Many are affiliated with Care Net, which describes…
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