Religion Dispatches
…l suggests that it was not to be. If there’s another chapter left in American Christianity, it will likely require an embrace rather than a flight from the absurdity of its words and practices….
Read More…od’s best,” Osteen misses a very important point. Perhaps on his next long flight he can pull out his Bible and take a gander at Luke 16:19-31—the story of Lazarus and the rich man. Daily, the rich man ignored poor Lazarus, but when Lazarus died he was taken to “heaven” or a place of eternal comfort. The rich man’s fate in Hades was terrible, however, as he begged Abraham to “send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; f…
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…graham—a speaker’s bureau of conservative ideology. When I was there in the 1980s, there is never even any pretense of ideological balance. (Full disclosure: I was chair of the College Republicans. Looking back I’d say that was a pretty effective coping strategy for deeply closeted and conflicted gay man. Full disclosure no. 2: I stopped making contributions to Harding when Bay Buchanan was invited to campus. Alumni loyalty has its limits.) In a 1…
Read More…ow it encourages victim-blaming, political complacency, and a culture-wide flight from realism. “The flip side of positivity is… a harsh insistence on personal responsibility: if your business fails or your job is eliminated, it must be because you didn’t try hard enough, didn’t believe firmly enough in the inevitability of your success,” writes Ehrenreich. “As the economy has brought more layoffs and financial turbulence to the middle class, the…
Read More…l stewards of the earth. The impoverished: The denomination pledged back in 1972 to “support federal welfare reform legislation” to help the poor. Violence: Also in the 1970s, Baptists supported an end to violence, “not only physical acts of violence but also psychological violence such as racism, chauvinism, and economic discrimination.” Women: Back in 1983, the denomination even passed a resolution that urged “all employers, including those Sout…
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…ogically, in particular to African Americans. King’s tweet referenced the “Flight into Egypt” (Matthew 2:13) when the holy family were called to flee to Egypt to avoid the “massacre of the innocents” by King Herod. This scriptural reference has served as a prooftext that Jesus and his family were going to hide amongst “Black” people in Africa away from the fury of an infanticidal despot, hence King’s emphasis on “EGYPT” not Denmark (Europe). King…
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On a warm day in July 2013, I found myself on the wrong end of a canceled flight out of RDU Airport. I used the opportunity to travel into downtown Raleigh to observe one of the early Moral Monday rallies at the State Capitol. The gathering was ostensibly called to protest the legislature’s newly gerrymandered district map – among the most tortured in the nation. I expected to find a group of committed, passionate citizens (mostly people of color…
Read More…nd power of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Paprocki said. “Be uprooted and put to flight from the Church of God from souls created in the image of God and redeemed by the precious blood of the divine lamb. “Dare no more, oh cunning serpent, to deceive the human race, to persecute the church of God, to shake the chosen of God and sift them like wheat,” he continued. In an unusual use of public services, the exorcism included two armed Springfield police o…
Read More…ancy Pelosi’s numbers have being going down a chute faster than a Jet Blue flight attendant” and “President Obama’s idea of a rogue state is Arizona.” As for the substance of Romney’s speech, what was most notable was the absence of talk about values, let alone religion. Instead, Romney sounded every bit the corporate buyout and turnaround specialist, criticizing the “anti-growth,” “anti-investment” Obama administration for forgetting the priv…
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…He referenced a decision by Pope Paul VI to allow nuns in the Congo in the 1960s to use contraceptives because they ran a risk of being raped, but refused to extend the analogy to other situations where a woman becoming pregnant might not be desirable (or desired). A pastor cannot feel that it is enough to simply apply moral laws to those living in ‘irregular’ situations, as if they were stones to throw at people’s lives. –In the long-awaited apo…
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