Religion Dispatches
…hy of international coverage because the Palestinian women had broken “the code of silence” by resorting to Israeli courts. The implications of this juxtaposition of two unrelated events are that Palestinians belong to a backward, patriarchal culture that, rightly or wrongly, is under attack by a modern, “democratic” state with a legal apparatus that supports women’s rights. Others have shown that the New York Times gave disproportionate attention…
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…icissitudes. If only. At its hip-swinging height, love permeates, pressing between gritted teeth and crow’s feet, between the tedium of a day and the discontents of whatever profession. Etta may be right that it’s the thrill you rest your cheek to, and St. Paul may have it when he says it endures all things. But these Weddings don’t live on love; they live on calculation. One of the wicked pleasures as a reader of the announcements is to fantasize…
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…d woman” provision from the article and recognize marriage as an agreement between “two parties,” a contentious point between supporters and opponents of the marriage equality legislation. However, to reduce opposition to the legislation, DPP Legislator Julian Kuo (郭正亮) raised a motion to revise Yu’s amendment, proposing that “man and woman” be retained, but inserting an addendum to recognize “both parties of a same-sex marriage.” Opponents of mar…
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…of entire groups of people, it relies on the same eliminatory principles. Between 1993 and 2016 eleven people were murdered by anti-abortion extremists, and there were 26 attempted murders; and between 1977 and 2015 there were 7,200 reported instances of anti-abortion violence. This includes some 200 instances of arson and bombings of abortion clinics. And, even with legislation passed in their favor, the anti-abortion rhetoric hasn’t stopped, in…
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…ited Church of Christ youth gathering? Are we talking about a happy medium between these models? L: Well, not really. The politics were better for the most part, but the organizational structure had problems. I was on the planning committee and got to see behind the scenes. The event had little unified message, there was not a good structure for youth input, and the leader’s manual didn’t even include much about theology, which came off as lack of…
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…e religious traditions. It did this by invoking the rhetorical distinction between “spirituality” and “religion.” Indeed, scholar Robert Fuller has argued that the phrase “spiritual but not religious” was coined by AA. Over time Western societies have liberalized, leaving AA to the right of present cultural norms. The “God of your own understanding” sounded so liberal in the 1930s whereas now, mention of the word “God”—regardless of the qualifiers…
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…interactive nature of communications, he says, relativizes the distinction between producer and consumer so that “communication appears not only as an exchange of data, but also as a form of sharing.” The Pope’s recent creation of a personal Twitter account in December 2012 seems to have been an attempt to engage with this interactive world without compromising papal authority (though as Elizabeth Drescher notes here on RD, this is a nearly imposs…
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…s well illustrated in the case of Peter Damian, an 11th-century bishop who promoted a harsh asceticism. Among his writings is a treatise that praises self-flagellation as an invaluable means toward repressing the body’s impulses. Sexuality was a deep concern for Damian, who believed that sexual acts were a sacrilege; celibacy and a renunciation of the erotic body was the proper road to Christian perfection. Damian’s hyperbolic language against the…
Read More…der identity (as defined in paragraph 249(c)(4) of title 18, United States Code), sexual orientation, or disability, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity funded in whole or in part with funds made available under [VAWA], and any other program or activity funded in whole or in part with funds appropriated for grants, cooperative agreements, and other assistance…
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…hether that much money could be spent, without consulting Congress, on the betterment of the condition of the American people. The roads around my apartment need repair. Can we get NATO to send some army engineers in? New York City also desperately needs new airports, which I’m sure we could build up at least partway, and then address the American people as to why we were forced to build it without clearing it first; after all, New York is vital t…
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