Religion Dispatches
…ys to sow affection and dispel the discord we inevitably create with our textual wars over sexual orientation and gender identity. If either liberal or conservative interpretations continue to widen the rift between us, then neither side has gone deep enough in its understanding of scripture. Many on the religious right are quick to discard the “Judeo” part of their Judeo-Christian roots when it becomes inconvenient, but Armstrong says they aren’t…
Read More…Pages about whether his clinic used the discredited practice. If I were a betting person, I’d bet this doesn’t have much impact on his wife’s campaign. While LGBT rights advocates and allies are right to be outraged, I doubt it would bring any new opposition to Bachmann, who is already well-known for her anti-gay views and voting record. And her supporters would likely not only support the use of ex-gay therapy, but view her husband as beleaguere…
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…she has in her forty books and one hundred articles, for a rejection of sexism and sexual pathology, an embrace of other cultures and religions, an option for the poor and a focus on the environment. Facing entrenched Vatican power, can one conclude that she is deluded, masochistic? Are millions of progressive Catholics who share her views deluded, engaged in a futile exercise? That is always a possibility. The direction of the Roman administrati…
Read More…bject to one another with no reference to gender at all Not only is this text explicit that the submission go in both directions, the traditional reading of the text that follows (commanding husbands to love their wives) is assumed to also apply to wives even though it doesn’t say so! Nancy Hardesty passed away last week. She knew she was dying and had written an essay full of insight and wisdom, “Some thoughts on Living and Dying.” She said, “Som…
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…alking about the rest of us.) As far as students go, they need to practice noticing and talking about the skills and habits they’re getting in religious studies. They’ll have to articulate these things to their parents and prospective employers. I bet they can do it better than I have. When they do, they’ll be a lot more ready to take over the world, and that will be a good thing. This essay is based on a talk given to Brown University undergradua…
Read More…gh Catholics are hardly a monolith on that front. That leaves for obvious explanations only one, which I’m reluctant to endorse: white Catholics just didn’t like the black guy in the White House. Unfortunately for Trump, even if that’s true, it seems like there’s only one thing they like less: him. You might want to fire up the shock paddles. And if he’s down by double digits among Ma and Pa Kelly at the start of October, get ready to notify the n…
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…tions about structural racism. This is what you would want in a sensitive exploration of a complex topic. And other researchers see corresponding trends in their own datasets. It’s unlikely that anyone who has studied the subject for more than the time it takes to read a few Wikipedia articles will be shocked to hear that American Christianity is part and parcel of a white supremacist social order. American society is racist, the church is part of…
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…e, a useful weapon in any politician’s arsenal, even if it is only an approximation of a more complex reality. In her invocation of Spielberg’s Lincoln, Clinton focused on a more shrewd, less familiar image of Lincoln. The particular episode in Spielberg’s film that caught Clinton’s eye was detailed in David Herbert Donald’s authoritative biography, in which the President denied the existence of peace envoys from the Confederacy in order to win De…
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…are official, though, is the fact that he has defended false equivalencies between pedophilia and homosexuality as nothing more than harmless “Christian beliefs regarding proper sexual ethics.” Crucially, Price also denounced the Obama administration’s landmark support for transgender students as an “absurd” and “clear invasion of privacy.” If Price can’t acknowledge that a transgender girl should be able to use the ladies’ room like all her girlf…
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…to “totally destroy” the so-called Johnson Amendment that currently bars tax-favored congregations (and other non-for-profit 501c3 organizations) from engaging in overt political activity. Trump appeared to be unaware of Mr. Jefferson’s insistence on a “wall of separation” between church and state. One imagines that President Trump might actually have had a go at prayer on the eve of yesterday’s breakfast appearance. What follows is an imaginative…
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