Religion Dispatches
…ns them the place better than others who make different choices. So, it is better for not better than. I mean, do what makes you better for yourself, but do not confuse it with something that makes you better than another self; which is istikbar. The story of Satan goes like this: when the prototype (or first) human, Adam, was created out of an atom of dust (tin, pronounced “teen”) the unseen creatures were ordered to bow to him. There was a reaso…
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…im debate, the university would likely have had a harder time adjudicating between parties. In my opinion, Muslims can legitimately step into this argument, but it’s really not for non-Muslims to say what Muslim students should or shouldn’t consider disrespectful. Upon further reading I also felt uncomfortable with defenders’ tone, starting with López Prater’s preemptive self-defense: “While many Islamic cultures do strongly frown on [depictions o…
Read More…express obsolete ideology? Or would blogging help the pope realize that some of his teachings are a wee bit outdated? What next, Pope Benedict on Facebook? If so, you can bet your mortgage that plenty of “good” Catholics will be editing their profiles before they ”friend His Holiness.”…
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…Focus on the Family, the champion of family values, somebody that I might bet a hundred bucks is one of the five most influential evangelicals of the 20th century. What is his relationship to Paul Popenoe? Audrey Clare Farley: So Dobson went to work for Popenoe as his assistant, before he founded Focus on the Family in 1979. And so, as his assistant, he authors all kinds of publications, which were basically Popenoe’s ideas for a public audience….
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…n, “by the fact that there is a total lack of will by the Israeli state to promote co-existence and to educate the Jewish population about the national minority within them, that they too have a legitimate right to the Land. In fact, while the current government plans at allocating money to strengthen Israeli ties with the Jewish diaspora, there are none for creating a safe haven for its non-Jewish citizens.” Ghosts. Israeli political commentator…
Read More…ntegrity of the study. But politically, the integrity of the study may be beside the point. The Witherspoon Foundation and Bradley Foundation apparently wanted a weapon they could use to fight marriage equality and they got it. It’s a safe bet that the Regnerus study will be cited by religious right groups for years to come, the way they have over the past decade cited a horribly flawed study of “ex-gays” by Dr. Robert Spitzer—even after Spitzer a…
Read More…the housing bust. Many people may simply be postponing childbearing until better times return, and a few years of swift growth could produce a miniature baby boom. Good. Here we have actual people making decisions about childbearing, and in the process considering their own economic conditions. He goes on to say that “America has no real family policy to speak of at the moment, and the evidence from countries like Sweden and France suggests that…
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…. Braxton they will also think of a dollar sign. Is it a lot of money? You bet your sweet financial recession it is. But the church is betting that to be a big influential progressive church, they have to make a big financial investment in their leader. Is it too much? Most of his new congregation doesn’t seem to think so. As Braxton began to finish his sermon, you didn’t hear him so much as the congregation on its feet, cheering. Later that day,…
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…ilding up while the rest of us struggle to make ends meet—and that they’ve betrayed their loyalty to the group. (“Is Mitt Romney really one us?”, every Obama ad seems to ask.) Many in the Democrats’ activist base are well to the left of Obama and have long been skeptical about, or outright rejected, the big three values of the right (as Haidt so often complains). Even many who hold them as private values are often resistant to making them a basis…
Read More…l, and hard work. With just enough walk-shoveling. That was always a risky bet for a wonky Yankee Mormon. And evidence suggests that it hasn’t worked: evangelical Christians are consolidating behind Rick Santorum. Had Romney not spent the entire first part of his candidacy trying to pass himself off as a regular Christian conservative, he might be in a position to state the obvious: to take the Republican party by the shoulders and make the case t…
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