Religion Dispatches
…Christians is not reason enough for a divorce and, more often than not, is code for “serious sin.” Pentecostals have a history of being strict about reasons to divorce, adultery being scripturally the only reason to do so. For those who divorce and who have a denominational affiliation through ministerial license, a divorce can mean, at best, additional scrutiny and at worst, stripping of ministerial credentials. Of course, that never has stopped…
Read More…ing house, arguing that the book violated Article 295A of the Indian Penal Code, which forbids “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class of citizens.” The school teacher was Mr. Batra, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu nationalist organization. As early as 2001, Mr. Batra has engaged in political and legal measures to affect educational curriculum through his organization…
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…nd active commitment to “social justice,” something that Beck has said are code words for Communism and Nazism. Look, Frank Capra wasn’t exactly known for his subtle messages. Yet, somehow, Beck manages to reinterpret the movie through an unregulated free-market ideological Ayn Rand prism and message of Christian conservatism. For real? Either Beck has never watched the movie, or he’s so conservatively deluded that he thinks Mr. Potter is the hero…
Read More…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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…code (or “ward”-level) supervisors for grassroots campaigning. One LDS zipcode supervisor reported that the Mormon Church was “the only member of the Protect Marriage coalition” to participate in the Yes on 8 ground campaign. On August 16, the Yes on 8 ground-campaign began its voter-identification phase, with a reported 15,000–30,000 Mormon precinct walkers knocking doors each weekend in August to identify “yes,” “soft yes,” “undecided,” “soft n…
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…specific set of institutions and political positions, is regularly used as code for “most of Islam.” And those who obsesses about Islamism often flirt with more bald-faced statements of Islamophobia. Critics of white supremacy and patriarchy, on the other hand, point out that these ideologies are pervasive in the culture at large. The blame casts a wide net, not in order to single out a minority group, but in order to implicate a culture that’s be…
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…nting a fourth installment. Other major studio efforts haven’t cracked the code for commercial success either: Darren Aronofsky’s Noah earned a respectable $100 million, but cost an estimated $125 million to make. Son of God did okay at the box office, grossing $26.5 million its opening weekend, bolstered by support from American megachurch pastors including Rick Warren and Bill Hybels. But ticket sales quickly faded. Independent studios have done…
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…ere a book out there you wish you had written? Which one? Why? The DaVinci Code. Now, that’s a profitable reworking of Christian history. I wouldn’t have to worry about paying for my daughter’s college education. Seriously, I wish I could have written Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. It is one of those magisterial books about history that has become part of history. Books like that happen once in a generation. Sigh. What’s your next book? It is on…
Read More…asking women campaigners to make in accepting this legislation based on a code of practice and please do be prepared to meet us half way as this draft legislation suggests.” On the other side of the aisle, traditionalists in the Church of England are less than pleased with the legislation. Rod Thomas, Bishop of Plymouth and leading traditionalist stated: “This leaves us very clearly with a feeling that our ministry in the church is simply being t…
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…dren is worth getting riled up about. Nor do I mean “Let’s be cautious” as code for “Maybe this isn’t an important question.” To the contrary, it’s a vital question. Yet it’s also an easy question to approach in an unhelpful way. Precisely because sexual abuse is appallingly common, compassionate people look for patterns to explain why it happened in this instance and not that one. And that’s a good thing: abuse prevention means recognizing common…
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