Religion Dispatches
…passed the “Ryan Budget” I’m thrilled, personally, that it’s Ryan. The GOP ticket is now led by two unbelievably privileged and self-important white guys (are Billionaires for Bush still around to gin up Rapacious for Romney material?), but it’s even better than that. The Ryan Budget is such a gift to the Democrats that one might think the Angel of Moroni had dropped into their laps. Unlike Romney, Ryan is anything but a cipher in respect to concr…
Read More…party types who will now turn out enthusiastically. It adds pizzazz to the ticket. An ideological firebrand is the one thing Romney has never been accused of being, and now he can borrow that heat. I believe that Romney or the people close to him pushed Romney for some of these reasons—including getting past the Mormon moment and the focus on Romney’s character. The persistent question about Romney has been: who is this man? What made him who he i…
Read More…ce in “judicial tyranny.” Now, they’ve set their sights on the Romney-Ryan ticket, which released the statement that “a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.” “Personhood USA does not endorse political candidates, but we had hoped that Congressman Ryan would be a good influence on Governor Romney, considering Romney’s liberal abortion record,” Jennifer Mason, the group’s communication director, said in a statem…
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…uns, who say that without apology, are not naïve. Their rock-star days are numbered; their work is cut out for them. At the 200th anniversary celebration of the Loretto Community this year, Kim Klein, grassroots fundraiser extraordinaire and a Protestant co-member of Loretto, put her finger on a big reason that relates to why religious communities, which might seem anachronistic to some, are still and increasingly popular. The world does not need…
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…he early afternoon, cameras in hand. It is not uncommon for tourists to outnumber monks in the debate courtyards during this time. This is obviously disruptive, making a spectacle out of a serious educational pursuit. Monastic response to the Chinese government policy of limiting monastic enrollments is at least in part the result of a clash between the secular, materialist, security-concerned worldview of the Chinese state, and the religious, tra…
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…that number seems staggeringly high. A full third? Once you delve into the numbers, though, 34% doesn’t seem quite so high. Really, Pew has asked an excellent question—a question that reveals the full tangle of ambiguities and inconsistencies that surround the topic of Jewish identity. First, some background: when the researchers at Pew set out to conduct this survey, they quickly ran into a problem that’s been under discussion for at least two th…
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…tails ties to the Reichsbürger milieu. Experts attribute the stark rise in numbers to a heightened awareness and the agencies’ attempts to reduce the number of unreported cases. The conservative Minister of the interior of the previous Merkel administration, Horst Seehofer, had always refused to conduct a study of right-wing sentiments in the police and military, in spite of the warnings of social scientists who urged him to commission one. For ye…
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…ings from Arab and Muslim governments with the countries’ legal regimes, a number of which punish homosexuality with death. A hacker identifying with Anonymous flooded some ISIS-related Twitter accounts with rainbow flags, gay porn, and fake “coming out” tweets. Mexico: Church driving down support for marriage equality; activists worry about threats In the weeks since President Enrique Peña Nieto announced plans to push for a constitutional change…
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…ential material,” said Mpofu. “Oh yeah,” echoes Bourland. “In my heart, I just begin to pray, God, let this woman rise to this place that you want her to go,” said Mpofu. “Number one, she’s a Christian. Number two, she’s a woman.” Watch a short video montage of the conference here. —Ed….
Read More…llege they call ‘home’ would act this way.” When I spoke to Corvino on the phone Tuesday, he seemed to be wrestling with the same concerns, noting that the school’s sudden cancellation of his event sent the message that the presence of openly gay folks was like “a virus that might infect the students if they’re not protected.” Corvino reflected this same concern in a blog post Wednesday, It’s difficult not to feel as if the Providence College admi…
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