Religion Dispatches
…l, and hard work. With just enough walk-shoveling. That was always a risky bet for a wonky Yankee Mormon. And evidence suggests that it hasn’t worked: evangelical Christians are consolidating behind Rick Santorum. Had Romney not spent the entire first part of his candidacy trying to pass himself off as a regular Christian conservative, he might be in a position to state the obvious: to take the Republican party by the shoulders and make the case t…
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…ng financial problems and infighting among church staff — including a rift between Schuller and his son (and heir apparent) the Rev. Robert Schuller, Jr., over the direction of church ministry — the Crystal Cathedral filed for bankruptcy, eventually reaching a $57.5 million agreement with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange to purchase the gleaming architectural icon of American Protestantism. Exterior of the Crystal Cathedral, 2007. Image via Wi…
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…” will have significant political legs. Plenty of liberals seem willing to bet that what we have here is nothing more than white nationalism’s pathetic last gasp: that the demographic tide has finally turned decisively against the racism-drenched reactionary project. I’m not so sure. I think we can already see that anti-Blackness dressed up as anti-wokeness may, in fact, succeed to a chilling degree. Not surprisingly, the states where Republican l…
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…unctioning autonomously from male authority, even in the process of finding a mate. Girls are to rely on their fathers to do this for them and remain in submission to their fathers until they have been given over to submit to their husbands. These organizations all promote literature, lectures, conferences, and other materials intended to promote this perspective, as well as the starkly delineated gender norms and expectations upon which this view…
Read More…rding the circumstances under which federal funds will be granted. You can bet your bottom dollar that those religious groups totally opposed to embryonic stem research will be advocating for restrictive guidelines and mobilizing their members to advocate against such research. Bad theological arguments about human life will abound and bad science will be brought to bear and careful ethical distinctions are unlikely to be made. Embryonic stem cell…
Read More…going to allow religious objectors to completely opt-out of laws by continually re-defining the burden on their religious exercise, regardless of the impact on third parties and the harms done to them. And you can bet if that strategy succeeds here, we’ll see it in use very soon in other contexts, like exemptions to LGBT non-discrimination laws and marriage equality protections. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that….
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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…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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…akfast in Washington—which declares that its “mission” “is to reaffirm and promote in a Christ-like manner the idea that God has a purpose for and authority over human events.” Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s far more militant son, has been the keynote speaker the last two years. In McCain’s circles, Palin was a particular favorite of former senator Dan Coats of Indiana. A long-time associate of the Fellowship, Coats has never been much enamored o…
Read More…song. Two of these got plenty of play on major cable networks like MTV and BET; but very few people have seen the third video. In the song, Kanye seems to embrace personal spirituality (i.e., “the way I need Jesus”) over against an explicitly racial theology (i.e. “I ain’t here to argue about his facial features”), while insisting that Jesus walks with “the least of these”—namely, “strippers, murderers, drug dealers.” We might consider the song a…
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