Religion Dispatches
…needed. But our community desperately needs tax reform to stabilize human service and health care programs. Oftentimes such discussions are uncomfortable in a church atmosphere and so I’ve decided to [enter] this race because without such reforms we’ll have to continue cutting vital programs for the poorest of the poor, and I’m not willing to allow that to happen without trying to use government as a vehicle for social change. That is not to say…
Read More…picture of Nidal Hassan as a terrorist, absent any facts, denigrating the service of the Muslim-American service members who serve with honor. Lemon then says that most acts are carried about by Muslims, ignoring the points raised by Arsalan and Soumaya. I wish I mentioned that a Muslim was involved in reporting the Times Square bomb car, or that Soumaya mentioned that it was a Muslim who turned in the Hutaree, but I am glad Arsalan got in the ra…
Read More
…g—it’s repeatedly been deployed by Christian nationalist groups before, in service of Trump and elsewhere. These are snapshots into a much, much, much broader field of commentary. There are literally thousands upon thousands of comments in this single donor file engaging in a range of theologies and ideological commentaries, in service of funding an insurrection in Canada. However sparse these particular examples may be, I hope that researchers wi…
Read More
…inent Jewish leaders. Adler’s reason for holding such ritualistically bare services are surprisingly relevant, perhaps, to today’s religious “nones.” Said Adler: “You may have holier moods on a Tuesday than on a Sunday; you may enter into larger communion with the spirit of nature in the woods or by the sea. You may! But, as a matter of fact, actually do you?” Wouldn’t it be better to attend any kind of service—even one as secular as theirs—to inc…
Read More
…veteran, such a big sad that he had to go whine about it in Religion News Service. And that’s where things get really funny, at least to me. But funny or not, things certainly get revealing. Bringing in other examples of recent conservative Christian infighting—over Chick-fil-A’s new cauliflower sandwiches (you can’t make this stuff up) and the Asbury revival specifically—Pinkston opined that just about anything Christians do “faces an immediate…
Read More
…more from a congregation in terms of time and commitment than streaming a service online,” she says. “But it gives the gifts of personal, embodied presence, and even friendship and love.” While I, as a former pastor, would ordinarily not want to discourage lay ministry, it shouldn’t have to be said that we don’t live in ordinary times these days. Visits carry a non-negligible risk of infection, particularly in congregate settings such as hospital…
Read More
…aphic Regions,” The University of Virginia Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. The University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service’s Demographics Research Group puts Bedford, Campbell, and Franklin counties in “west Central” Virginia and Halifax in “Southside” Virginia. [49] “Quick Facts,” The United States Census Bureau. [50] Jason Dunovant, “Supervisors Pass Resolution Supporting Volunteerism, Leave Out Militia,” The Frankl…
Read More…ur country,” Archbishop Ntagali said. Matthew Davies at the Episcopal News Service writes that Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, addressed the primates before the January 14 vote, saying in part: “Our commitment to be an inclusive church is not based on a social theory or capitulation to the ways of the culture, but on our belief that the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross are a sign of the very love of God reaching out…
Read More
…hapel prior to the mass—although mass is too broad a term. The Good Friday service in Catholicism is not a mass, because there is no eucharistic celebration, rather, it is a commemoration of the Passion and crucifixion of Jesus. It is also the day on the liturgical calendar that the Pope does not deliver the homily. That did not matter to the thousands gathered. Pope Francis, (besides Jesus) was the attraction everyone had come to see. As the proc…
Read More…prophetic vocation here is being exercised: speaking truth to power in the service of reclaiming the community’s fundamental goodness and promise. It is progressive because, without being saccharine, it asserts that progress does happen—slowly, painfully, and never easily—and that progress is due, in large part, to two things: the powerful potential of American ideals, and the courage of American citizens. There are, of course, other ways to play…
Read More