Religion Dispatches
…nother later-fallen prosperity preacher, Eddie Long. It was the TBN “Praise-A-Thon,” and Munsey was playing a prominent role in trying to rake in the bucks for network, which, along with its founders Paul and Jan Crouch, has been embroiled in its own controversies. Here’s an excerpt: Munsey, a middle-aged man (an “empty suit,” as described to me later by someone disenchanted with the movement) with a flop of a hairpiece that looks like straw, is i…
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…t resonates deeply with lived human experience. A true myth brings one face-to-face with reality and has nothing to do with literalism or the ignoring of scientific evidence. To get to my point: There is found in each of these excerpts, a disconnect between the author’s idea of Christianity and what Christianity actually is. Admittedly, these comments may have been written off-the-cuff and perhaps there was not time or space to elaborate fully, bu…
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…nswered with an attack on the stones by vandals who used a can of red spray-paint to write messages such as, “The elite want 80% of us dead,” “9-11 inside job,” “Obama iz a Muslim,” and “Council on Foreign Relations is ran by the Devil.” The stones were also splashed with polyurethane, which is especially difficult to remove. The vandalism has been celebrated on numerous Web sites discussing the New World Order’s agenda; with only a few dissenting…
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…ies Union. Although Robertson remains the organization’s president, its day-to-day operations are run by litigator, activist, and radio and television host Jay Sekulow. The ALCJ portrays itself as the voice of God-fearing, America-loving Christians battling secularism, radical Islam, and what it claims is hostility to religious expression in the public square. In the political oppression and economic chaos that has defined Zimbabwe under Robert Mu…
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…—provided the moral legitimacy for the struggle. Ideologists such as Abd al-Salam Farad and Ayman al-Zawahiri have written as if violent struggle—including ruthless attacks of terrorism on civilian populations—was the only form of struggle that was advocated by Islam. These assumptions have been proven wrong. The dramatic popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Lybia, Bahrain, Yemen, and elsewhere in the Islamic world have demonstrated that protests…
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…ng faster than the earth’s population and faster than Islam. Wagner’s cell phone rings mid-lecture; a Hank Williams ringtone. The class laughs. In fact, it’s probably an act designed to loosen them up. A pro with five decades of public speaking under his belt, C. Peter Wagner is the “convening apostle” of the International Coalition of Apostles. He’s also the presiding Apostle over a prayer network originally formed, in 1990, as the “Spiritual War…
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…arrested a 37-year old man who had been making abusive and threatening anti-gay phone calls to MP Ben Bradshaw. Europe: Trans activists say Europe shows too much deference to ‘national identities’ Transgender Europe welcomed a statement from the Council of the European Union on LGBTI equality and gender equality, but said the conclusions “are poisoned apples as they lack political aspiration.” More from the statement: Instead of leading by example…
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…ere not companionship-based. They were economic arrangements. Okay, that’s number 1. Number 2, let’s say that your wife didn’t provide you with a male offspring. A man could take another wife and another wife and another wife until one of them did. This is the “sanctity of marriage” that is being protected. Are you kidding me? Wow. Okay, so that’s Old Testament. Then along comes Jesus. Well for those of us who follow Jesus, I always like to point…
Read More…any other name) a Reconstructionist? And as Gerson noted in his essay, the number of people who can be labeled in this way would “fit in a phone booth.” (Actually there are significantly more than he recognizes, but I take his point.) My point, though, is that this is the wrong question. Far more interesting, I think, is to look at the influence of Christian Reconstruction; how has it impacted the style of the conservative Christianity that makes…
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…a given monk will be admitted, are increasingly opting for admitting middle-aged worker-monks who, being past the ideal age for beginning rigorous scholastic training, are, understandably, more interested in working than in studying. This means that the population of serious scholarly monks in the great monasteries is gradually declining, something that is obviously contributing to a decline in the intellectual life of the great monasteries. Final…
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