Religion Dispatches
…de on many other issues in the culture wars, the more of those same Catholics will also drift away from a church they perceive as incapable of change. Perhaps they’ll attend mass on occasion, and perhaps they’ll still call themselves Catholic, but in many ways, their faith will be a loose garment rather than a straightjacket. _____ *Full disclosure: the Berkeley Newman Center is where I sometimes attend church. …
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…I would say tenuous—position of the Episcopal Church that ‘marriage’ is still reserved to describe the covenant between a man and a woman.” The same-gender blessing liturgy, then, represents the furthering of a discussion of the theology of marriage that Johnson believes “will contribute to a broader push for full marriage equality for all couples in the very near future.” It is this direction that troubled more traditionalist Episcopalians, amon…
Read More…murders in the United State since 9/11. Yet counter-terrorism remained the number one priority of the FBI, which spends several billion dollars annually to prevent and prosecute Muslim terrorists. Is this myopic focus on Muslim terrorists doing all of us more harm than good? Finally, citizens and policy-makers must grapple with its never-ending war on terrorism abroad. For a significant portion of the country, the war on terrorism is, by definitio…
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…owever, that there are more people who live and value the truth, and the Bible’s right about that. Finally, I’d like to quote a Pussy Riot song because, strange as it may seem, all our songs have turned out to be prophetic, including the one that says: “The KGB chief, their number one saint, will escort protestors off to jail” – that’s us. What I’d like to quote now, however, is the next line: “Open the doors, off with the shoulder-straps, join us…
Read More…and bishops who back them a chance to be heard in a synod where they’re still vastly outnumbered by conservatives. Douthat likewise ignores Pope Paul VI’s apostolic letter Apostolica Sollicitudo, which established the Synod of Bishops and the procedures for their meetings which states that the responsibilities of the pontiff regarding synods are: To call the Synod into session whenever he feels this will be advisable and to designate the place wh…
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…r than that. If the Pew survey tells us anything, it’s that the conversation isn’t likely to end any time soon. Like this story? Your tax-deductible $5 or $10 will help us pay writers, coders, interns, and editors. And will earn you our endless gratitude….
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…tails ties to the Reichsbürger milieu. Experts attribute the stark rise in numbers to a heightened awareness and the agencies’ attempts to reduce the number of unreported cases. The conservative Minister of the interior of the previous Merkel administration, Horst Seehofer, had always refused to conduct a study of right-wing sentiments in the police and military, in spite of the warnings of social scientists who urged him to commission one. For ye…
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…d from entering the monastic life. —Party officials ultimately decide who will or will not be granted “official status” as monk or nun. Large monasteries in the TAR often have an “unofficial” monastic population that can be up to half of the official number of resident monks—a kind of waiting list. Although residents of the monasteries, where they work and study, these unofficial monks and nuns have little status and no real privileges in these in…
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…ns the first in a series that its producers assert has brought to tens of millions, even hundreds of millions, the doctrine that Christians can create a utopia on Earth by driving out territorial demon spirits and alleged witches with the power of massed prayer. The exposure brought Thomas Muthee global fame. Transformations I was released in 1999. The same year, it reached the members of a Mat-Su Valley, Alaska, church network (the Valley Pastors…
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…But what outcome is this that is probably already decided? That “science will win” and “religion will lose”? Unless I am wildly mistaken, that is the subtext of the remark. I suspect the war, to employ the writer’s hawkish language, will not work out that simply. I think the science and religion will come to coexist peacefully, just as they do in the minds of so many. Christianity, like other great faith traditions, is not easily done away with….
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