Religion Dispatches
…ious Vehicle, and a Pimp—on the Trail of the Ultra-Rich Hijacking American Politics, an insidery look at the post-Citizens United world of political mega-donors. With several of the highly recognizable names—particularly casino mogul Sheldon Adelson—being Jewish, has their money bought them influence among Jewish voters? With regard to Adelson, the editorial contends, his early support of Newt Gingrich “didn’t really work. Gingrich lost the primar…
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…cates for gun control are caught on the horns of a dilemma, then. They can live their values and not get involved in the dirty business of politics, in which case the slaughter continues. Or they can come off the sidelines and start to organize effectively, which challenges the cherished belief that faith-based action can somehow rise above mere politics. Reinhold Niebuhr pegged this problem right: no option for response is morally pure—and oh, by…
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…cals do defect from Trump it won’t necessarily indicate a departure from the politics of the last four years. It may simply suggest that evangelicals have lost faith in Trump’s ability to perform. Even small signs of strength, however, such as Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling upholding Trump administration regulations allowing religious exemptions to contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act, will likely be enough to draw evangelicals b…
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…face.” He believes this helps explain why White evangelicals rally around Trump or other White nationalist politicians. “It’s just more evidence to them that Trump’s sticking up for people like us,” an idea the former president is eager to reinforce. Al-Kire and Pasek have their own theories. “I think social dominance is really more inherent or more central to Christian nationalism,” says Al-Kire. Pasek hypothesizes two paths: “You can be a Christ…
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…p disdain for due process and civil rights. This is precisely the style of politics that Trump’s “vermin” language foreshadows. He isn’t a culture warrior so much as a man out for vengeance. And if he wins, he will empower the very people who see the repeal of Roe as central to a theocratic—even Christofascist—political vision. Unlike much of the GOP, the former president has waffled on abortion rights. Although in the past he’s self-described as…
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…e, which has become a symbol of both liberal and conservative scorn of the New York movement (conservatives scoff while some liberals cringe). Why Aren’t There 50 Clergy? But there was a tiny glimmer of progressive religious activism. I was there to meet a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Brian Merritt, the gregarious, affable pastor of the ecumenical, progressive Palisades Christian Church in the District. “I’ll be the guy in the Ben’s Chili Bowl…
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…omplete in every moment of human existence. He opens his volume with these words: Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and ourselves. If there ever was an anti-Enlightenment axiom, this is it. And Dunbar knows this. Calvin’s Divine Providence, through the exclusive salvific death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is absolute. Everything is predestined for…
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…lavery and the 100 years of Jim Crow still lives on in the unconscious—sometimes conscious—lives of white Americans. And that’s what we have to defeat. White supremacy thrives on a fear of black bodies because there is a real—but not acknowledged—fear that white people will be held responsible for what they’ve done. The fear is that they themselves will be the recipients of violence. So Barber is right in many ways to name those fears and argue fo…
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…(where many of the early scenes in Stake Land were shot) to film school at New York University. Unlike other young filmmakers, who often see the horror genre as a stepping stone to what they consider more serious work, Mickle’s ambition in Mulberry Street, his first feature, and now in Stake Land is to prove the horror-film’s value as a medium for old-school dramaturgy. “I see genre as a context for telling bigger stories,” he said. “That means co…
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…exas governor Rick Perry, former mayor of Indianapolis and deputy mayor of New York City Stephen Goldsmith, and current U.S. Representative Daniel Webster (R-FL). Past members of the IBLP’s Board of Directors and Advisory Board include billionaire and part-owner of the San Antonio Spurs James Leininger, former Congressman Sam Johnson (R-TX), and Georgia State Senator Ralph T. Hudgens. Gothard’s foundational beliefs—the eponymous “basic life princi…
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