Religion Dispatches
…ontend, are not granted by either document, only recognized in them; these rights exist only because they were granted by God. That “endowed by the Creator” argument has been made repeatedly by Republican politicians in speeches lately, including Mike Huckabee, Michele Bachmann, and Newt Gingrich. That’s the new “values voters” rhetoric: government is a tyrant, disobedient to God. Sure, all the anti-gay, anti-abortion, and anti-secularism stuff i…
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…or religion. It’s a matter of rights. Charles E. Cobb, an African-American journalist and author who served as a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi between 1962-67 seems to have the right perspective. While recently promoting his new book On the Road to Freedom: A Guided Tour of the Civil Rights Trail he offered his thoughtful opinion. “Gay marriage should be treated as any other civil right,” h…
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…r articles 98, 160, and 161 of the Egyptian Penal Code. According to Egypt News Daily, the prosecution first sought to charge him in connection with disseminating Innocence of Muslims but when this accusation was proven false, they revised their strategy to target the content of Saber’s video blog. Though sentenced to three years and released on bail he was subsequently locked up due to a clerical error before being released on December 17. Saber’…
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…I’m still a freelance journalist, hustling for gigs. Rinzler and Burrow’s new meditation studio, MNDFL, is just a block away from Washington Square Park, in one of New York City’s most chic areas. For the price of two entrees at Denny’s (plus a dessert), you can drop in for a 45-minute session that includes a brief introduction, a guided meditation, and a debrief Q&A with one of MNDFL’s 27 teachers. Special deals are available for your first mont…
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…ry with so little explanation created a vacuum of meaning. Much like the Guidestones’ inspiration, Stonehenge, this caused new meanings to be invented. The Guidestones are essentially a spiritual and political Rorschach test onto which any number of ideas can be imposed. Pagans and New Agers created new myths and rituals, imbuing the stones with sacred reverence. For others, the monument is not the marker of a sacred space but the evidence of a de…
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…e origin is to be found in a profound human crisis . . . . We have created new idols. The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.” The article concludes that Francis’ speeches clearly draw on the themes of liberation theology, a movement that seeks to use the teachings of the Gospel to help free people from pov…
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…9th century, then archaeology played a major role in the construction of a new image of the new-old Greek nation. The Parthenon itself had, by then, been many things. The Byzantines had turned it into a church, the Church of Holy Wisdom. The Franks turned it into a fortress, replete with a new defensive tower. The Turks turned it into a mosque, then later used it as a powder magazine. The Venetian Count Morosoni, knowing this, lobbed a shell into…
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…ageddon). Indeed, the shooter was empowered by broad discourses of thinly-veiled white nationalism and Christian nationalism that have enjoyed more currency than ever among conservatives in the post-truth maelstrom of the age of Trump. Conservative interpretations of the New Testament like O’Reilly and Dugard’s Killing Jesuspromote white Christian nationalism. The sooner we recognize how prevalent these insidious forms of white nationalist biblica…
Read More…k: Compare Indiana’s newly minted RFRA to the one assessed by the court in New Mexico. The Indiana RFRA departs from New Mexico’s RFRA and the federal RFRA—on which many other state laws are modeled. How? Indiana’s RFRA expressly provides that a person can assert a “claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding, regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding.” This new statutory language…
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…f dividing the country, today’s immigrants remain deeply connected to their communities of origin while at the same time participating actively in the social and civic lives of their new home. Through new and diverse forms of civic participation, new immigrants are expanding the classic notion of immigrant incorporation….
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