Religion Dispatches
Governments worldwide are struggling to manage the global financial crisis, with no end to the downturn in sight. But at least so far, one sector has been unscathed: the $1 trillion-and-growing business of Sharia-compliant banking. That’s right, Sharia. The same combination of medieval Islamic law and modern post-colonialism that makes the terrorist clique supposedly so hateful of Western freedoms. Where finance is concerned, most muftis—Islamic…
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…stition. Surely there was something delusional in the huge bets that money managers were placing on financial instruments (credit default swaps, exotic derivatives) that even they and even the ratings agencies didn’t understand. Surely there is something equally delusional in the idea that covering these bad bets with taxpayer money will “fix” the problem. There is more than free market ideology in play here. I name it religiously, as market idola…
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…ished. Signers included nuns who were members of the National Coalition of American Nuns who had come out in favor of public funding for abortion in 1976. Prominent among them were Srs. Margaret Traxler, Marjorie Tuite, and Donna Quinn; the three had impressive histories of civil rights activism. Traxler had marched with Dr. King; opposition to US imperialism in Central America was Tuite’s passion and grassroots activism for women on welfare drove…
Read More…think of Catholics as being as diverse as Jews, though I observe that Jews manage their diversity with a great deal more grace. Then we can lift the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that constrains many professional Catholics from saying what they believe on issues like contraception. There are solid Catholic arguments for the many approaches, not all of which I like, but all of which I have to be honest enough to admit are Catholic. Just as I would…
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…ward pressure that social media places on the quality of online content, a number of news articles did manage to connect the dots between Ferguson and the discriminatory housing policies put in place after World War II. As I have argued before, new technologies tend to augment existing systems of privilege. Yet there is reason to hope that digital media may yet catalyze a more just future. Dear Prudence Before jumping from his capsule, with all ey…
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…t film The Birth of a Nation (which lionized the KKK and portrayed African Americans as unequivocally licentious) debuted at the White House just a few years later reminds us of an ever-looming undercurrent in American history. While there is clearly much more to Dante’s epic poem than anti-Muslim angst, the embedded nature of such xenophobia into European and American national culture deserves recognition. Today, much of what manifests itself as…
Read More…y functions went into over-drive – people began binging on food, trying to manage the adrenaline rush that was pumping into them. All caused by the incredible anticipation of the expected — and long-awaited — announcement. As I witnessed, and shared, in that explosion of emotion, I thought of similar upsurges of changes in the human condition, and was reminded of the idea of “rapture” in religion, where the human being has become so overcome by a…
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…at even far-right evangelical allies don’t find credible, but what it does manage to perfectly capture is the current state of homeschooling politics, which is currently shot through with fear and paranoia about government intervention. Because of this, homeschooling is almost entirely deregulated. Since any efforts to address problems in homeschooling environments are universally rejected by those who hold power in the movement, abuse and neglect…
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…pe is still Catholic.” Trying to read Vatican politics through the lens of American politics and media concerns is not helpful in this particular instance. Rather, parsing out the players, the mess, and potential outcomes will yield a better understanding of what the stakes are for Pope Francis and the upcoming Synod. Kim Davis impacts his “reputation” but the substance was always the same. Don’t expect Mathew Staver or Liberty Counsel to understa…
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…se it to promote the agenda of the Christian right. Trump had referenced a number of recent legal battles over religious exemptions from the law (some of which ADF had been a party to) “As the president’s proclamation says, ‘No American—whether a nun, nurse, baker, or business owner—should be forced to choose between the tenets of faith or adherence to the law.’” This proclamation is reprinted in Gateways’ Religious Freedom Day brochure on its web…
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