Religion Dispatches
…on proposed by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, an organization that promotes intelligent design. David Fowler, head of the conservative Christian Family Action Council of Tennessee, which is affiliated with Focus on the Family, and is one of the bill’s primary lobbyists. In defending the bill’s language, he has tried to draw on comparisons to the famous Scopes monkey trial that took place 86 years ago in his state. “…[T]oday’s evolutionary…
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…ourse. Or, to be more precise, it’s about the nature of the discourse. The latest instantiation of this disease arose around the publication of Peter Beinart’s provocative but hardly radical new book, A Crisis of Zionism [reviewed here in RD –Eds.]. In the Forward last week, J.J. Goldberg had a fascinating take on why it has everyone so “unhinged.” Many of the criticisms went beyond contempt—they bordered on inquisitional. One particular critique…
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…istian members of the Texas Board of Education inserted intelligent design code words into its science education requirements. The wording includes directing students to analyze and evaluate “sudden appearance” in the fossil record and analyze the “complexity of the cell.” The language prompted creationist and pro-intelligent design organizations like the Seattle-based Discovery Institute to claim victory “for science education,” but science educa…
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…nt families, and the power of adolescent sexuality. Jennifer’s Body is the latest offering in this genre. There are plenty of horror fanboys, and a lot of fangirls, who’ve been anxiously waiting to take a peek at Jennifer’s Body. The combination of Megan Fox showing skin and Diablo Cody’s signature dialogue (made famous in Juno and United States of Tara) offers a feast for two usually incompatible groups: adolescent boys and fans who like to see a…
Read More…Western Muslim Brotherhood, seem poised to take power throughout the Middle East as a result of riots that have already toppled one Arab regime and are threatening others, in what some are calling only the latest wave of an Islamic ‘tsunami’ sweeping the globe.” Oh, and look! The Brotherhood has learned its tactics from Bill Ayers and Code Pink. Don’t you love living in a fact-free world?…
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…d not permit boys and girls to talk to each other, demanded a strict dress code, taught that girls should never run, and demanded that girls style their hair wavy—not straight or curly—because “wavy hair is attractive and becoming—it causes you to focus on the woman’s face instead of her body.” Gothard’s approved wavy hairstyle is meant, she said, “to attract men to your bright eyes, which will attract them to God, instead of your body.” Eliza ela…
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…eveloping charismatic and photogenic representatives of the lifestyle they promote. To this end, VF creates a beautiful glossy catalogue populated with high quality photographs of [the] Phillips children and friends in romantic historic costumes and settings: Jamestown, the Massachusetts Bay Colonies, and the Wild West. In these images, and generally in the literature and stories of Vision Forum, gender roles are greatly exaggerated and glamorized…
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…ignificance is not support for communities of color or fairness in the tax code, but rather alignment with cosmic forces of enlightenment, it makes some sense. Post-millennial lefties tend to be really scary, or really wacky, or both. In pop culture, they inhabit films like Fight Club or the latest Batman flick: utopian idealists who will use any means, including violence, to bring about the transformation they seek. In practice, though, they tend…
Read More…er judged a vehicle for courting the religious right in psalmic and hymnic code, Palin is delivering a very clear message to religion-savvy listeners, who hear in her call for “servant’s hearts” the message of twenty years’ worth of “complementarian” sermons, exhorting Christians to be “servant-leaders” and, among women, to view their highest calling in service to male leadership: willing helpmeets to their husbands’, fathers’ and pastors’ authori…
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…from pro-choice feminist to Lady Bin Laden. Right now, after covering the latest Palin-alia (including the recent discovery that Palin, as mayor of Wasilla, billed rape victims for the kits required to gather evidence) they are arguing over the meaning of “Christian.” Which signals that the discussion (or wild screeching) is getting distilled down to elemental particles. Or that everyone is squinting and looking down their rifle sights, getting r…
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