Religion Dispatches
…nce of a double standard for abortion facilities; the speed with which the new regulations were handed down and compliance mandated; and the perception that the new regulations are intended to get around federal law), the measure has been controversial. In a recent editorial, the Kansas City Star criticized Governor Sam Brownback for signing the bill, claiming that “[t]he move reflects the same disdain for Kansans that Brownback has shown in other…
Read More
…system simply doesn’t work that way. And in the current economic climate, new arguments against the death penalty have begun to appear in some surprising quarters. A new argument for abolition stems from the cost of the death penalty. Capital trials are almost always longer and more expensive; there are more witnesses in general, and bifurcated trials mean you are getting two trials often for nearly twice the price. The mandatory appeals process…
Read More
…there? You had pointed out the novelty piece, the idea that this is brand-new, and of course we know new religious movements are never wholly new. Everything builds on something else. But the idea that it, specifically Q, doesn’t fit into a really clear broad political trajectory for the last 40 years is either willfully ignorant, or just damagingly naive about the role that politics has been playing in the United States for at least the last 40…
Read More
…e were insurmountable. It’s over these boundaries that we’re going to find new friends and new ways of loving God and new ways of engaging God’s reign in the world. That’s where we’re moving and that is frightening to some people who don’t think they can make those leaps. They don’t see women as fully human. They don’t see their gay and lesbian friends as having a personhood from which they can learn or be friends with. Those boundaries remain inc…
Read More
…iage Equality Bill Opposed by Evangelical Lawmakers Equality activists are promoting new marriage equality legislation, which is backed by deputies from different parties, though one of the lawyers supporting the bill acknowledged that it might be blocked by evangelical lawmakers who have to date prevented other attempts. Tunisia: Court Jails Students on Sodomy Charge Last week a court sentenced six male students to three years in jail after ssubj…
Read More
…he original game designers provided for the creation of additional levels, new characters, new environments, and scripted events. Some of the most popular platforms for machinima are Second Life, Halo, World of Warcraft, The Sims, and even Grand Theft Auto. Because of its self-reflective and journalistic style, Molotova Alva has been dubbed “the first documentary shot entirely in a virtual online platform.” The Second Life avatar who stars in the…
Read More
…hem less apparent by making them seem exceptional. So, with regard to this new effort in New York, we must ask: What does this new coalition bode for the future? Will our willingness to celebrate this new interfaith effort sideline us from the equally important effort to refuse to support callous religious opposition to sex education? To condom distribution and needle exchanges? To inclusion of LGBTQ persons? To the real illogic of wishful thinkin…
Read More
…ght transgenderism, if we frame it as an attack against your children” The new 12-region structure of a leading New Apostolic Reformation network. On a practical note, Pfeiffer also announced the new national structure of USCAL, which will be the body that seeks to more methodically deliver on their religious and political vision. They aim to take a less top-down, more bottom-up approach to “reformation,” and emphasize the local church. He and oth…
Read More
…ngry and betrayed. The archdiocese, after all, is the largest landowner in New York: what would be done with these properties? Answers were not forthcoming. When news trickled out that the archdiocese had spent $175 million dollars to restore St. Patrick’s Cathedral in advance of Pope Francis’ visit to New York, anger tuned to bitterness. And with Cardinal Dolan’s history of having shifted diocesan funds around during the sex abuse scandals when h…
Read More
…e of analysis that I find more troubling. McWhorter deems wokeness to be a new religion. Had he simply declared wokeness a new ideology or simply stayed with his third-wave antiracism construct we could have simply debated the merits of his argument. Yet his declaration of wokeness as religion serves not as honest assessment of religious thinking in the form of social justice activism. Instead, religion is invoked as a ready-made punching bag for…
Read More