Religion Dispatches
…See, there is no war on women, only an elitist war on conservatives!) You’ll see that resolve tomorrow. The high temperature in Washington is forecast to be 15 degrees. But I’d bet marchers come out in force, and you’ll see more than a few signs, and hear more than a few comments, about Governor Cuomo. …
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…en in the English translations that are readily available, he would have a better sense of Leibowitz’s more complex position on these matters. Sloppy comments like these sink this book of details. If one is going to write a book composed solely of details one has to be very certain the details are accurate and contextualized. Hunter Thompson knew that better than anyone. Reading Goliath got me thinking about Alan Dershowitz’s The Case for Israel t…
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…ted by actual science, is not outside the realm of possibility—and you can bet Cameron knows it. Cameron is among those made-in-America anti-LGBT activists who are exporting the US culture wars (their cause clearly losing at home) to countries where their prejudices are widely accepted, anti-LGBT discrimination is already enshrined into law or could be, and the potential harm from their violent rhetoric is that much greater. For those who may not…
Read More…curity, while jihadi movements likely feel themselves to be vindicated. Ayman al-Zawahiri had condemned the Brotherhood for deciding to take part in elections, and you can bet he, like so many other cynical actors, greets this bloodshed with glee, for it advances his vile and immoral ends….
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…to what Donnie McClurkin said in his video response to the actions of the promoters disinviting him to sing? McClurkin said in a Socialcam video that “It is unfortunate that in today that a black man, a black artist is uninvited to a civil rights movement, depicting the love, the unity, the peace, the tolerance….” He goes on to say that: “…Discrimination, bullying is still a part of this…its bullying, it’s discrimination, it’s intolerance and it…
Read More…ay next Tuesday as he presents the findings of his gun task force. You can bet there will be something about closing the now infamous “gun show” loophole that allows for nearly 40% of gun purchases to proceed without a background check, as well something about reinstating bans on assault weapons—like the weapon used at Sandy Hook elementary. Maybe Vice President Biden will also underscore an obvious national need for better mental health screening…
Read More…the housing bust. Many people may simply be postponing childbearing until better times return, and a few years of swift growth could produce a miniature baby boom. Good. Here we have actual people making decisions about childbearing, and in the process considering their own economic conditions. He goes on to say that “America has no real family policy to speak of at the moment, and the evidence from countries like Sweden and France suggests that…
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…e is any passion at all in these recitations, it is a passion in the head. Better than none, I suppose. But if we want to galvanize people who themselves are not struggling around the grim state of the economy, reeling off the facts won’t cut it. People must be invited to engage directly with those who suffer: that is where transformation can begin. So yes, religious progressives should at least try to temper the bad habit of imagining they can r…
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…u say, ‘Well, that’s not so!’ You try to be polite, but people should know better,” he told me once as we discussed what he called “wrong ideas about God.” “Christ is not an idea. Christ is a person. But ideas about him are very important. If you have a wrong idea, that stops your growth in God,” he said. “People within the church should know better and just are ignorant of the facts, no matter what you think about them. That puzzles me.” We had o…
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…world of prosperity gospel preachers, whose claims about the relationship between faith, donations to the church, and personal well-being strike many outsiders as a straightforward, money-motivated swindle. In the business of hope, there’s already very little overlap between the legal and the ethical—and, it seems, little clarity on where the legal marketing ends and the illegal stuff begins. What’s clear is that dreams are good business. It’s fi…
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