Religion Dispatches
…dismay turned to laughter when I saw immediately below Winters’ screed the code of conduct for comments on National Catholic Reporter. His post is a primer on violating NCR’s own rules for respectful conversation. Maybe someone at NCR can give him a much-needed tutorial. NCR Comment code: Be respectful. Do not attack the writer. Take on the idea, not the messenger. Use appropriate language. Avoid vulgarities and slurs. Keep to the point. Deliberat…
Read More
…in American society that images of Christ are not the real issue, but just code for broader sets of values for particular groups? Paul Harvey: The fact that the white Jesus was in the stained glass window of 16th St. Baptist emerged from a long history in which the image of Jesus represented, in one sense, racial and class structures deeply embedded in American society. That’s why that image, and not some other, was there in the window in the firs…
Read More…ssisted the Senate Finance Committee with an investigation of possible tax code violations by televangelists, Trinity has seen less media coverage, and hence fewer donations from the public, according to the letter. Trinity’s investigations for the Senate Finance Committee led the Committee to launch an investigation, in 2007, based on revelations that televangelists had used tax-exempt funds for luxury cars, private jets, mansions, and even plast…
Read More
…ion Board of the State Congress announced that the Congress will vote on a new civil code at the end of the year after a couple of months of public forums on the topic. The National Action party, he said, would seek to promote a civil contract but not a marriage. Arturo Sandoval, governor of Jalisco, joined Guadalajara’s Pride march and called for respect, inclusion and tolerance. The governor’s Facebook page included a range of comments both in s…
Read More
…where two men were sentenced to public lashings for gay sex under a strict new provincial sharia law. Bangladesh’s legal code prohibits “unnatural offenses,” which it says includes voluntary “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal.” The offense is punishable with life in prison. The law is rarely enforced, but LGBT groups have reported that police use the law as a pretext to bully gay or simply effeminate indi…
Read More
…of Islam that celebrates queerness” Catholic Church: South African bishop promotes reparative therapy, Brazilian promotes acceptance South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier announced on Twitter earlier this month that he is reading “Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach,” by the late advocate of reparative therapy Joseph Nicolosi. His August 1 tweet called the book “a challenging work on a subject of great importance.” T…
Read More…institutions like the 1788 Constitution, the presidency, and the military code of honor. But at what costs do we maintain a revered institution like the military code of honor? Holocaust levels of genocide threaten the Syrian Kurds. Why isn’t the prospect of mass murder enough to make Mattis reconsider the politics of personal honor? If that grim prospect is not enough, what is? Mattis’ deferral to presidential rights, for instance, should challe…
Read More
…r high school world history, so that’s what we’ll focus on here.* The Good News … In a standard on major historical turning points from 600 to 1450 CE, students are now required to learn about “the spread of major world religions,” instead of “the spread of Christianity,” as the 2010 TEKS required. (A move by some board members to restore the 2010 language was abandoned after education agency staff noted that the standards cover Christianity’s spr…
Read More
…p’s case. Pope Benedict XVI had the power to forcibly retire gangsterish abuser Marcial Maciel to a “life of reserved prayer and penance,” but he couldn’t stop Maciel from living it out in a gated community in Florida. There is no acknowledged need for the guilty to face his accusers, to fully account for his actions, to wander like Oedipus outside the city gate or sit in sackcloth like the penitent outside the door. It is accountability devoid of…
Read More
…a is not directly responsible for this proliferation of laws outlawing the promotion of homosexuality, or for the renewed zeal for using existing morality laws against LGBT people, such as in Egypt. But Russia has positioned itself as the champion of traditional values, both domestically and internationally. … “Traditional values” is the staple language of Russia’s alliance with countries from the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and the A…
Read More