Religion Dispatches
…al in a case in which women seek legal relief. The move by ProtectMarriage.com was an obvious Hail Mary attempt to get the ruling nullified. Their reaction has been pretty typical—now training their sights on Judge Ware—pointing to a story that the judge “misrepresenting himself as the brother of a boy killed by racists in Alabama in 1963.” Ed Whelan at the National Review quotes an email from an attorney friend who goes on to characterize Ware as…
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…coalition with populist ‘paleoconservatives.’” While each of these figures comes to the table from different places, they come together in agreement on Rothbard’s anti-statism, which dovetails with North’s views. For North, the Bible limits the legitimate functions of civil government to punishing “evildoers” and providing for defense. Reconstructionist theocracy, based on the Reconstructionists’ reading of the Bible, gives coercive authority to f…
Read More…guns, paid for by “a millionaire” who wants you “protected against what’s coming.”) The video in the email is by evangelist Jack van Impe, known for his premillennial rapture theology and his disconnected rambling in Bible verses. It is entitled “President Obama’s Religion in Question” and argues that he is really a Muslim. Joan, who claims in an email to be “well-educated,” is one of those tea partiers who thinks she’s calling for a return to “o…
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…h a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world.” Still, McConkie’s own book, Mormon Doctrine, which propounded racist legitimations for the priesthood ban, remained for sale in LDS bookstores and on the shelves of LDS homes. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, when questioned about the ban in public, LDS Church leaders continued to sidestep its origins and rationale. Mormons hungry for a more direct appr…
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…Second Life is a boon because virtual worlds afford the opportunity to overcome our cultural differences in a new community, formed of people from different cultures and with different beliefs (New World Notes). The opportunity to explore new religious “territory” is aptly seen in the case of the Muslim woman who attended synagogue in Second Life because she had been curious about Judaism but felt too self-conscious to attend a real-life temple se…
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…sely chose to ignore it rather than add to the confusion. The real vampire community (as this group has come to collectively refer to itself) is in the strange position of experiencing an unprecedented level of media attention, even as they are often pejoratively characterized as being unable to discern media from reality. Don Rimer, a former police officer and “occult crimes expert” recently claimed that the Twilight novels by Stephanie Meyer hav…
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…linton “called for urgent action by Arabs, Israelis, and the international community to break the cycle of Mideast violence and to move toward a comprehensive peace in the region,” Evans noted. What this really means, according to Evans, is “that Israel would be forced to give up East Jerusalem, and the holy sites beloved by Christians worldwide, as well as most of Judea and Samaria.” Evans also pointed out that Netanyahu would soon be traveling t…
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…ehind series, discussed it on the Rachel Maddow show. Jenkins subsequently complained about how Maddow edited them, so she posted the entire interview (which you can watch at the bottom of this story). The exchange is worth watching in its entirety, but I will offer a brief summary analysis of the duo’s two-step. Jenkins and LaHaye wisely distanced themselves from a bald assertion that Obama is the Antichrist, retreating instead to a somewhat more…
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…er against similarity, familiarity, and religious mystery. Orsi’s critical compassion toward his subject matter is masterful and serves as an inspiration. What’s your next book? A cultural biography of sorts on Bishop Carlton Pearson, former protégé of Oral Roberts tentatively entitled Pentecostalism Made Pretty. Pearson will serve as a lens to examine the growth of the neo-Pentecostal/Charismatic perspective in the latter part of the previous…
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…from Harrisburg. As they sat down at the table, Sneath and Dennis began to compare notes, sharing common experiences. Dennis plopped a large file on the table that details the case and starts flipping through pages. She asked Sneath if she had initially realized how demanding and time-consuming being a plaintiff in a First Amendment case would be. Sneath told her she honestly had no idea what to expect. At first, Jenifer Dennis said she couldn’t t…
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