Search Results for:

VIPREG2024 ixbet promo code Slovakia

Did the Duggars’ Fundamentalism Cause Sexual Abuse? Not So Fast

…dren is worth getting riled up about. Nor do I mean “Let’s be cautious” as code for “Maybe this isn’t an important question.” To the contrary, it’s a vital question. Yet it’s also an easy question to approach in an unhelpful way. Precisely because sexual abuse is appallingly common, compassionate people look for patterns to explain why it happened in this instance and not that one. And that’s a good thing: abuse prevention means recognizing common…

Read More

A Jew in Church? No Big Deal

…r worldly peers while simultaneously beholden to an arcane and restrictive code of behavior—is actually rather compelling. “Being tugged in one direction by the secular world and in another by the religious world, they have styled their own compromise,” he says, “[and yet] they also feel an unbearable sense of loneliness and despair.” But the extent to which Cohen understands his own motivations for journeying into Christendom is unclear. “I’m hop…

Read More

Whistleblower Alleges $100B Hoarding Scandal by LDS Church; But There’s An Easy Fix

…t the church from hoarding this wealth (though other provisions of the tax code do). Transparency would simply require the church to disclose the details of their cache. Sunlight does not burden religious liberty, it cures fraud and abuse. Asking for transparency from every nonprofit is perfectly legal, but Congress has not acted. In an era of congressional gridlock and where civil rights laws demanding equality are maligned as anti-religious libe…

Read More

Louisiana Citizens Horrified that there’s Evolution in Science Books

…rite and successfully lobbied for in 2008. The LSEA instructs educators to promote “critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.” It also allows teachers and school districts to use “supplemental textbooks,” which are just code words for creationist and pro-intelligent design materi…

Read More

Jose Antonio Vargas’ Coming Out and the Power of Stories over Religious Remonstrances

…about race; Edwards said that frequently progressives speak “in their own code,” which “sends people away” rather than “draw[ing] them in.” She added, “I want to make sure we’re using language to draw people in who share the same concerns about declining jobs and opportunity.” Edwards was reacting to someone in the audience bringing up the term “white privilege;” Edwards, who is African-American, cautioned that when people of color use that termi…

Read More

The New “Values Voters” Mantra

…ernment”=”tyranny,” for the GOA and many others on the religious right, is code for government is supplanting God’s will and plan for what America is and should be. As Julie and I reported in a piece about the GOA over the summer, GOA’s position is rooted in its religion, not the Constitution (which it believes is a reflection of God’s will, not human hands): The militia movement and Christian Reconstructionism both contend that our current civil…

Read More

Express? It’s the Straight Talk Script

…orth Vietnam, the way he turned to the thought of his fellow captives, the code of honor of the US military, to the Constitution itself, one never hears that he turned to his God, or to prayer. I do not suggest that he ought to have done, of course. I simply note that this absence is glaring, and his religious silence is deafening. That is what made the appearance of both men together on the bizarre political platform of a Baptist church all the m…

Read More

Fascinating History of Search for “Lost White Tribe” Sheds Light on Construction of Race

…diverse. Maybe these explorers did see people whom a modern American would code as white. Maybe not. As Robinson demonstrates in The Lost White Tribe, the better questions here have to do with the interpretation of bodies, not just with the bodies themselves. Basically: why were European and American adventurers so eager to find these far-flung white tribes in the first place? And they were eager. Reports of white Indians and white Africans made h…

Read More

More Mixed Signals from Pope Francis; Church of England Wrestles with Rifts; Faith Groups Lobby Pro & Con on Irish Referendum; Global LGBT Recap

…atened gay Congressman Claudio Arriagada Macaya. Ireland: Interfaith group promotes marriage equality, Catholic bishop warns against As Ireland heads toward a May referendum on marriage equality, an interfaith coalition, Faith in Marriage Equality, has been formed to urge support. Richard O’Leary said the group was created to let people of faith know that they can vote yes, adding that media attention has focused on conservative Christian groups a…

Read More