Religion Dispatches
…close enough for vote-tampering to give him a victory. Was it “values” (a code word for conservative religiosity) or national insecurity? When Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville asked “Why America Wanted Change But Voted for Continuity” in 2004, they came up with the best answer: “A narrative is the key to everything, and the Republicans had a much more coherent attack and narrative… The president was able to keep the ele…
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…f.” There is a certain God-intoxication here. More than that, however, and central to my argument is that Pittsburgh’s archetypal history—a frontier town founded by settler-colonials in a province with utopian aspirations that grows into the wealthiest industrial metropolis in America, only to see its economy gutted by free-market orthodoxy—makes the region a metaphor for the nation itself. Which is what makes the spiritual implications of Pittsbu…
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…ration of conservative media activists can be divided into two groups. The central figures, like Manion, Regnery, and Rusher, were driven primarily by politics. Their religious faith informed their politics, but religion was not their central cause. Another, somewhat tangential group like Billy James Hargis of Christian Crusade and Carl McIntire of The Twentieth Century Reformation Hour wanted to win souls first, votes second. Though there was a l…
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…leader of Tibetan Buddhism to the Grand Dastoor of the Persian Zoroastrian Republic, as well as representatives from the World Council of Churches. There are even rumors that “anti”-Pope Pius XV of the American Catholic Church may arrive later this week from Rio de Janeiro, fueling speculation of a rapprochement after decades of schism. The U.S. Ecumenical Church has remained cautious, issuing platitudes about how the discovery magnifies our under…
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…lded. The military campaign was initiated by Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic, which was unwilling to relinquish its centralized and increasingly nationalistic power. The day after those declarations of independence took place, I was on a plane to Boston on a two-month visit to an uncle who’d already lived there for several years. The timing was a coincidence; my family had been planning this trip for a while. But midway through my visit, se…
Read More…“Homosexuality was never considered a sin here, just shameful.” Dominican Republic: Presidential contender slammed, apologizes for anti-gay comments Former president Hipólito Mejía, who is positioning himself for another run at the office, came under fire last week for making anti-gay comments while he was in New York drumming up support. Mejia is close to the notoriously anti-gay state Sen. Ruben Diaz. Blogger Andres Duque publicized comments Me…
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…ies where they teach each other how to live and what to believe. They also promote their belief that the United States is a White Christian republic rather than a multiracial democracy. And in a number of cases they turn their conviction that White Christians have superior civil and political rights—over those they deem “Fourteenth Amendment” citizens (everybody else)—into fraudulent schemes with fake money. In other instances, they establish “Chr…
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…ed, for some, sacred terrain beyond the contaminating imprint of the white republic; whether in a storefront, freestanding building, or the surreptitious brush arbors of many yesterdays. However, in the racial imagination of America nothing operates outside of the deleterious insistence of whiteness—no place is a safe zone. As the history of lynching—the obscured legacy and culture of racist vigilantism—has taught us, black people live without san…
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…o we hear something just a tad bit proprietary? The legend of the Virtuous Republic has been invoked, the American system is what renews and guarantees the virtue, but that system is now malfunctioning on account of a God deficit. Or perhaps because of a Flag deficit. It’s hard to tell which, because in minds made like Douthat’s the two always run together. And now comes the hard slap at liberals whose faith is watery at best and whose weakness al…
Read More…administration has criticized anti-gay laws in Africa and elsewhere. “The Republic of Kenya is a republic that worships God. We have no room for gays and those others,” Ruto told a Nairobi church congregation in the national Swahili language, according to an online video posted by Kenyan broadcaster KTN. Speaking at a news conference on Monday, Kerry was not familiar with Ruto’s remarks but said it was the U.S. position that “all people are creat…
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