Religion Dispatches
…ey on American Jewish attitudes. His money isn’t about 2016 or even 2020 or 2024, it’s about staving off the shifting views of American Jews about Israel, or at least constraining political dialogue about it. Citizens United enabled Adelson to pour as much of his money as he wants into influencing elections, but that’s really a misnomer. He’s not influencing the outcome of elections, but enforcing how candidates speak. Case in point (a story we kn…
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…otest, take our nation back!”—Trump will host his first formal rally of the 2024 presidential campaign season at the Waco Regional Airport. The location is, in theory, all about the positive Trump vibes in Texas. As his campaign staff wrote, “It is undisputed that Texas is Trump Country after electing 37 Trump Endorsed Candidates and recent polling among Texas primary voters.” Indeed, Waco boasts the largest Baptist university in the world, which…
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…pep-rally type prayer) about how the Roman Catholic Church “encourages the promotion of the dignity of every human person, regardless of their physical, mental, cultural, social and religious characteristics…” Tell that to a trans person, a family growing through the generosity of a surrogate, or a pregnant person who decides to end their pregnancy. Their human dignity is erased by the content of this document. Their rights are threatened and/or r…
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…e United States in the event of an authoritarian takeover of the country in 2024. Written by Professor Erica Chenoweth and Dr. Zoe Marks, the Pro-Democracy paper recommends immediate investment into the development of alternative systems and structures in order to render authoritarian-captured structures irrelevant. Chenoweth and Marks point to soviet-Poland’s underground schools created to maintain popular education during the occupation. Transge…
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…ery, and the Refounding of America Matthew Stewart W.W. Norton & Co. March, 2024 The prideful bit comes naturally to me as someone who was ordained by the Congregationalists and who currently rolls with the Unitarians. Because of course the Yankee Congregationalists and their Unitarian offspring went all in for abolition, not to mention labor rights, women’s suffrage, and so on down the line, right? For years I’ve taken comforting reinforcement fo…
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…s speech—after a long list of far-right celebrity shout outs—by framing the 2024 election as a battle: “the greatest in our history, most important battle in our lives is taking place right now as we speak. For seven years, you and I have been engaged in an epic struggle to rescue our country from the people who hate it and want to absolutely destroy it.” The stakes aren’t just political control—though political control is part of it—but existenti…
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…Kremlin must feel giddy knowing that Putin may only need to hold out until 2024—under a GOP president, it appears, Ukraine should not expect aid. The Right’s admiration of Russia hasn’t subsided, even though the images from a besieged Ukraine—the slaughtered civilians, including children—forced them to tone down their accolades for Putin a bit over the last year. Putin’s Russia is their utopia; they imagine it as a White, conservative Christian p…
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…thanksgiving for the life of Sister Mary Theresa Kane, who died August 22, 2024, in Watchung, New Jersey. A Sister of Mercy for 69 years, she was 87 years old.” Theresa Kane was, in my view, the most consequential, respected, and beloved American Catholic woman of the last half century, without whom enormous changes could not have happened. Theresa was born Margaret Kane in 1936 into a large family with Irish immigrant parents. She entered the Si…
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…gs, once prohibited the advertising and mailing of abortifacients. In March 2024, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments over abortion medication, these two septuagenarian justices signaled their wish to resurrect Comstock laws. A casual observer might come to a myopic conclusion: these anti-abortion justices are invoking Comstock provisions in an effort to once again outlaw abortifacients. But that conclusion misses the bigger picture. By ta…
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…would lead to only 70% of white evangelicals to vote for the Republican in 2024 is pure folly. But, why is this the case? Despite the dozens of advocacy groups that have sprung up over the last few years to try and “peel off” white evangelicals, why have they, by and large, failed to move the needle in any significant way away from the GOP? The answer is simply that this group of voters are Republicans first, white people second, and evangelicals…
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