Religion Dispatches
…threat of eternal damnation. Both liberals and conservatives need to do a better job at digging deeply into the scriptures to find ways to sow affection and dispel the discord we inevitably create with our textual wars over sexual orientation and gender identity. If either liberal or conservative interpretations continue to widen the rift between us, then neither side has gone deep enough in its understanding of scripture. Many on the religious r…
Read More…ly Hindu, that women in Hinduism are subordinate to men, and that Hinduism promoted social inequality and injustice. In the absence of any theological perspectives, Marxist/Ambedkarist interpretations of Hinduism did have an impact on Western understandings, including those of noted religion scholars such as Doniger and Paul Courtright. This isn’t to say that Marxist approaches to religion can’t be useful, but it’s important to understand the cont…
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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…from the same evil corrupting our public life. And none of us will win the freedoms we deserve unless we do it together. Liberation is collective. This means that no person is free while their neighbor is shackled, but it also means that we will never break these chains without a universal and reflexive commitment to one another’s thriving. Abortion rights and gender care help people achieve the fullness of who they know they’re called to be. And…
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…s for same- and opposite-sex wedding cakes burdened not only his religious freedom but also, and even more so, his freedom of expression. In a series of cases stretching over many years, the Supreme Court has upheld the expressive freedom of individuals, especially artists, applying the free-speech guarantee of the First Amendment not only to the written word but also to paintings, films, music, and even public parades. It has likewise protected t…
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…ngressmen urging them to protect right-to-work legislation in the name of “free agency.” “That’s Not Flip-Flopping” A key principle of Mormon theology, “free agency” is foundational, with roots extending all the way back to the Mormon pre-earthly existence, which was also the scene of a momentous battle. God had centered his plan for our earthly salvation on freedom, and had to defeat the followers of Lucifer, who proposed to force us all to obey…
Read More…go, so he quickly and rather inexplicably pivots to claiming that the truly important questions he must answer are actually about economic growth. And here you can see the free association at work: economic growth -> free market. Otherwise known as “teach the controversy,” not the science….
Read More…events.” In January 2009, principal Frank Lay and athletic director Robert Freeman were accused of violating the consent decree when “Lay asked Freeman to offer a prayer of blessing during a school-day luncheon for the dedication of a new field house at Pace High School. “Freeman complied with the request and offered the prayer at the event. It appears this was a school-sponsored event attended by students, faculty and community members.” In respo…
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…rganized religion (religio = binding) in their lives. Protestantism spawns free thought and free radicals (some of them toxic) the way a prism breaks light into uncountable and unclassifiable hues. So while it is definitely not fair to count the great unchurched free radicals of the 19th and 20th centuries as official Protestants, there is no doubt at all that, unofficially, that is just what many were: not just the towering Lincoln but also such…
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…speakers from our midst need not constitute a creeping assault on crucial free speech protections. And so, to crib from a cringey meme, it’s time for some speech act theory! *** In July 2020 Harper’s Magazine published a “Letter on Justice and Open Debate” signed by over 150 writers, academics and public figures—including anti-trans zealot J.K. Rowling, scholar-activist Noam Chomsky, novelist Margaret Atwood and a host of intellectuals, some cons…
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