Religion Dispatches
…horitative on all matters on which it speaks. Their belief statement also includes adherence to the doctrine of the Trinity and substitutionary atonement. Isn’t all of this illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Not since President Obama has reaffirmed support for such hiring practices for non-profit charities. Unfortunately, these outfits can continue to discriminate on the basis of faith. What troubles me is the complete hijack…
Read More…udents from Soddy-Daisy High School, Scales sent an e-mail to all local principals on Tuesday, saying the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled prayer before football games and graduation ceremonies to be unconstitutional and that the practices should be stopped. “But things are handled a little differently in different areas of the country,” Scales said. “This does not need to be something that divides our community. None of the school cases that have bee…
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…ms, grandparents, college students, newlyweds—all nurturing an online presence that, for some, has since eclipsed the academic bloggers in popularity among non-Mormons. These days the term “Bloggernacle” seems to function as a descriptor for practically any blog that mentions or links to the LDS church. At Bloggernacle Back Bench—a blog about Mormon blogs at the Mormon Times—even blogs like “Modestly Chic,” a fashion journal, warrant a mention. Th…
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…lign with traditional measures of religious practice such as church attendance, once Christian nationalist beliefs are taken out of the equation, the practice of Christianity in the United States usually “is associated with pro-social attitudes and tolerance.” Then, bestselling Christian author and speaker Jemar Tisby provided an overview of the history of African-American Christianity, holding it up as a model for how Christianity and patriotism…
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…m done carrying the cross of America, its false promises of democracy and inclusion, the documents that excluded me and called my ancestors three-fifths of a person. You figure it out. I’m about comforting Black people now. We need each other. I can’t help you feel less guilty about maintaining a violent, racist, gun-obsessed nation called America. As for you black folks calling out to Jesus, hoping for redemption, I envy you. You can sing the gos…
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…became an important marker of Eastern Christian identity—particularly as increasingly numbers of Eastern Christians became the simultaneous targets of Western crusaders and Islamic conquerors. In this context, rigid adherence to liturgical customs became a means by which to assert and preserve identity in the face of colonization and oppression. Conversely, adherence to Christian practices abandoned by the Christian West—if not in the Middle Ages…
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…te electorate in relation to the small number of African Americans, it is inconceivable to argue that African Americans are to blame. The fault lines of a progressive coalition to resist Prop. 8 were seemingly regional and religious as opposed to racially determined. Do Black Folks Need an Elton John? Scapegoating black folks is descriptively flawed because it pits a racial group against a multiracial reality. By positioning African Americans as a…
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…eed,” “feeling,” “thinking.” Religion is a network, a system, and its currency is symbols, rituals, myths, and concepts. It takes place within communities that act, and interact, and is set within specific cultures. These are brief definitions wrenched from larger contexts and intended to be used for further investigation, but they begin to suggest that Maher somehow escaped from (or slept through) his religious studies courses in college. Thus, h…
Read More…ace. We’d made plans to meet up in case we got separated and had exchanged phone numbers. In the middle of the tawaf, the call to prayer came. The guards stopped the tawaf. Some people complied and started to form lines. I found a spot between two women, each with their husbands, and sat down on the line. This seemed an ideal spot until a woman in black niqab squeezed in on my left just as we started the prayer. Okay then. Before we had completed…
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…in effect, walking a precarious line between advocacy of free speech and incitement to violence. Blocking the video might encourage copycat endeavors to prohibit other material, yet most would no doubt agree that endless provocation of violence must also be avoided—or at least mitigated. All companies that allow people to post content online—Facebook and Twitter, as well as Google—have grappled with similar issues, which are complicated by the la…
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