Religion Dispatches
…t is almost invisible outside the academic world because the text is nearly 800 pages of dense, jargon-filled prose.” Rest assured, we do not need to read Taylor for ourselves because David Brooks can be trusted. His ongoing effort to distill for us the density of jargon is a choice well-honed. The result: a column that we have chosen to read (again, wisely) and, moreover, a readerly choice that becomes a sign to others and ourselves that we are a…
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…se, his funeral last October was the largest in the country’s history, with 800,000 Israelis attending. In the past month, Rabbi Noam Perel, head of Bnei Akiva, the largest Jewish religious youth group in the world, called for the mass-murder of Palestinians and for their foreskins to be scalped and brought back as trophies, alluding to an episode in the Book of Samuel; and a Jerusalem city councillor, in charge of security, encouraged a crowd to…
Read MoreColorado’s fetal personhood ballot initiative petition failed to get enough valid signatures, and so the measure will not appear on the ballot, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced this morning. According to the Denver Post, some of the signatures were deemed invalid, so the petition was found to have only 85,800 valid signatures—305 signatures short of the required 86,105. Jennifer Mason, speaking for Personhood Colorado, said tha…
Read More…of the UK and France) as we only have 1 million in Western Europe, whereas 800,000 out of these 1 million live in France and the UK. The US on the other hand, with more than 6 million Jews (600% more than Europe) actually has a considerable Jewish problem. But please learn the difference between a nation-wrecking multiculturalist Jew and a conservative Jew. He then offers clues as to why he targeted fellow Norwegians, even though he claims to lov…
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…in overt ways. Cohocton is a small town, with a population in 2009 of about 800 people. It is in upstate New York. It is not my small town, nor is it likely yours; and yet each of these places is someone’s neighborhood. This time, it is only an hour away for me. Picketing as “The Workingman’s Means of Communication” On March 2, 2011, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in response to a series of prior decisions around Westboro Baptist Church’s pi…
Read More…s, but the numbers [pdf] show that the sample actually skewed right. Of the 800 registered voters polled 38 percent were strong, weak, or independent-leaning Democrats with 41 percent identifying as strong, weak, or independent leaning Republicans. Conservatives outweighed liberals by 38 to 18 percent, and a full 74 percent of those polled identified as religious. Some 40 percent claimed the moniker of “born again,” and 33 percent said they attend…
Read More…rty” leaders, Glenn Beck is one of the most vitriolic, and – with more than 800 hours of on-air time a year – the most visible. His portrayal of Soros today as the “Puppet Master,” as the special was called, evokes anti-Semitic stereotypes from the “devaluer of many currencies” to “advocate for one world government” from “anti-American” to “thinks he’s smarter than the rest of us.” Beck’s words have consequences. They advance a world view that ult…
Read MoreThere’s an old joke in newsrooms that goes if you can find three examples of something, it’s automatically worthy of a trend story. And so, according to the rule, it’s too early to call this a trend. Still, it is interesting that two news stories came out yesterday about school districts ending government-endorsed religious observances because they recognize that they would probably lose a costly First Amendment battle. Could it be that in the wa…
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…missionaries, to as many as 3,000 students a year. This semester, more than 800 students are registered in Professor Bott’s classes. (Eleven are registered for BYU’s African-American history course this semester.) Professors at BYU routinely find themselves having to address racist and sexist content taught in Bott’s classes, and many are outraged and embarrassed by his rogue remarks to the Washington Post, say sources at the university. “Dr. Bott…
Read More…ment does not collect information on its religious composition, but a 2009 international report estimated the number of Muslims at around 24,000, comprising less than one percent of the country’s population. Most are of Lebanese, Palestinian or Indian descent. Though small, Panama’s Muslim community has grown increasingly ethnically diverse. The first Muslims to come to Panama were African slaves brought over by Spaniards in the mid-sixteenth cent…
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