Religion Dispatches
…nation.” I’ve spoken to board member Don McLeroy quite a few times on the phone and he genuinely seems like someone who wants to be understood and have people appreciate what he’s doing. (I’ve never met or spoken to Cynthia Dunbar, but she strikes me as someone who really doesn’t care what people think of her.) So, I feel like calling up McLeroy and saying, “You, sir, are a cheater!” Because from the perspective of the literal-minded (and fundame…
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…s pretty much it. Evangelical leaders themselves didn’t believe the Gallup numbers were right, and [they thought that] the best way to combat those Gallup numbers was to ask Gallup to do another survey. And so in 1978, Christianity Today, a leading periodical for evangelicals, paid Gallup to do a big survey and in addition to just asking the born-again question, they asked questions about belief in the Bible, belief in Jesus, and intent on convert…
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…anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred and sixty-six.” The author of Revelation meant that 666 was a person’s name turned into a number via the Jewish numerological practice of gematria. Since every Hebrew letter was also a number, the letters of a name could be added up to produce that person’s number. Here’s an example of gematria using an alphabet we’re more famil…
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…looks to be releasing new information on the Catholic vote on Halloween, a number which often closely tracks the final total of overall voters. It’s also a number that varies quite a bit by the racial breakdown. While Trump wins white Catholics 48-41, he gets absolutely crushed among Hispanics, 84-12. A few back-of-the-envelope calculations put us firmly in “Holy shit” territory. Even assuming a generous 50-50 split of black, Asian, and other Cath…
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…ng scores of balloons while police looked on. In the U.S., the White House released a detailed fact sheet on its efforts to make the advancement of LGBT rights a foreign policy priority, and Human Rights First hosted an event featuring several members of Congress and released a new report on advancing LGBT equality in Jamaica. As we have reported, American religious conservatives have stoked homophobia in Jamaica and rallied resistance to efforts…
Read More…like most he interviewed, did not really understand what a Social Security number was. He certainly wasn’t trying to steal someone else’s credit. He was supporting his children, wife, mother and sister. When interviewed, he wept. The day after the arrests, Postville was in chaos. Families took refuge at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church. A third of the elementary and middle-school children were absent from school, traumatizing both immigrant children…
Read More…Civil Partnerships for Same-Sex Couples The Ministry of Justice this week released draft legislation that would allow same-sex couples to register for civil partnerships that would offer equal marriage rights except for the right to adopt children. Egypt: Human Rights Activist Detained, Then Released Partners in the Sexual Rights Initiative coalition were among Egyptian and international human rights advocates who called for the release of journa…
Read More…llege they call ‘home’ would act this way.” When I spoke to Corvino on the phone Tuesday, he seemed to be wrestling with the same concerns, noting that the school’s sudden cancellation of his event sent the message that the presence of openly gay folks was like “a virus that might infect the students if they’re not protected.” Corvino reflected this same concern in a blog post Wednesday, It’s difficult not to feel as if the Providence College admi…
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…church since the Protestant Reformation. That’s what we’re dealing with. X number of megablocks of Christianity, each with Y millions of Christians. Categories of Christianity zoom from the left onto Peter Wagner’s huge blue WLI classroom screen, bouncing slightly for effect as they hit the right edge of the screen before rebounding to center. There’s one little block of 20 million or so, explains Wagner, which includes Mormons and Jehovah’s Witne…
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…s give them voice A husband-and-wife couple, Daneen Akers and Stephen Eyer released in March the second installment of “Outspoken,” a planned ten-part series of short documentaries “featuring the stories of LGBT+ Adventists.” The first segment was released in February. Spectrum also reported on a study carried out by four professors at Andrews University who surveyed hundreds of LGBT+ adults who were raised Adventist. According to an interview, th…
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