Religion Dispatches
…who wants a Christian president, particularly one who would revise the tax code “so we can rejoice together because it would stimulate economic growth.” (Huckabee’s hosted debate, though, this past weekend, was more of a snooze than a circus.) In 2008 Huckabee got a fundraising boost from Kenneth Copeland, Word of Faith megastar. Copeland, at the time under investigation by the Senate Finance Committee for misuse of tax-deductible donor funds, cla…
Read More
…me that Jewish homosexuals today are far less emotionally stressed by the code that ruled out the possibility of being both Jewish and gay. Even among some Orthodox Jewish communities the issue is being addressed—though not yet resolved. I love your notion of “layered ethnographies”—in which you add to prior ethnographies rather than amend them. So, the ethnography of CBST includes the first and second editions of your book as well as subsequent…
Read More
…same Torah and commentaries, study the same Talmud, live by the same legal codes, and adhere to the same basic belief system. Yes, the haredim have a very narrow reading of these sources but it’s a safe bet that they can cite chapter and verse to support their views—often more adroitly than their modern counterparts. In his Mishneh Torah (Code of Law), Maimonides explicitly advocated the position that women should stay mostly in their homes. The k…
Read More…ious liberty.” Certainly, the religious right has made “religious liberty” code for “we reserve the right to discriminate against LGBT people with impunity,” but I think some businesses ought to have the right to deal with who they want to deal with. A photographer, or a baker, for example, should be able to serve who they please. If their refusal to serve an LGBT person (or anybody else for that matter) leads to a lawsuit or a boycott, that’s the…
Read More
…l’s frustration with people who might use “spiritual but not religious” as code for “I don’t really think about religion at all because it’s boring or difficult or irrelevant to my pursuit of self-interest.” One statistician of religion suggests that America is well on its way to becoming a nation of “310 million people with 310 million religions,” each tailor-made to suit themselves. As someone who has made a career out of the life of the mind, a…
Read More
…sociation in 2002 for violations of six different provisions of its ethics code, including provisions that prohibit counselors from “seek[ing] to meet their personal needs at the expense of clients,” taking advantage of the “trust and dependency of clients,” and deceptive promotion of products. At Wyler’s Arizona retreat, I was introduced to that healing touch therapy: I sat on the floor between the outstretched legs of a camp guide, my head leani…
Read More…s “weird.” The news set off a wave of speculation that weird was, in fact, code for Mormon, and that Obama and team planned to use the word “weird” as a dog-whistle to stoke voters’ antipathies towards Mormonism in 2012. The news set off a wave of cringes among Mormon politicos as well. Because Mormons do recognize “weird” as a word that sticks to us in the American imagination. In 1995, LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley declared in an inter…
Read More…cannot do within the guidelines of the IRS rules. He cited the part of the code that prohibits influencing legislation and labeled it “legalese,” before a lengthy parsing of what counts as legislation and then what counts as influencing— none of which substantially departed from everyday understanding of those terms. The talk sounded much like the “word study” sermon style found in many fundamentalist churches. He was careful to clarify that wheth…
Read More
…ooled by Santorum’s defense that he believes Obama when the president says he’s a Christian. Listen to the world salad Santorum and Stewart dropped onto the national airwaves. Anyone steeped in the “Christian worldview” (including Stewart’s old boss Bachmann) would fully understand that code as “Obama doesn’t govern from a ‘Christian worldview.’ And you know what that means: he must be a secularist, or an Islamist, or some other enemy of Christian…
Read More…tion will probably always belong to men. Women will thus only have as much freedom as their men are willing and capable of guaranteeing them. Breivik’s manifesto is evidence of his profoundly sexist view of the world, where women are naive and lacking in rationality, but are useful for sex and reproduction. He expresses concern that his fellow Knights will have a hard time killing women (especially attractive ones) in battle, and praises the chiva…
Read More