Religion Dispatches
…ated, that means that the government should be subordinate to God. But we knew Akin thinks that.) At Salon, Missouri political expert Jeffrey Smith gives 11 reasons why Akin is sticking it out—and one of them is “God told him to run and it may take God to tell him to quit.” Smith adds: Missouri politicians who have in the past tried to negotiate with Akin describe it as sort of like trying to negotiate with Ahmadinejad. He is a zealot, in every se…
Read More…ide among homosexuals is evidence of how unhealthy it is to be one. “Homosexual/bi-sexual individuals are seven times to contemplate or commit suicide,” he said, and then in a taunting tone, added “Oooh, that doesn’t sound very healthy.” All without a shred of empathy or recognition that the suicides are a result of how people like him treat gays and lesbians. I’ve written about the Reconstructionist influence on Barton’s views on race and slavery…
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…that during his February acceptance speech, after he won a Grammy for best new artist, Chance exclaimed “Glory be to God! I claim this victory in the name of the Lord!” He went on to give the obligatory “Thank you God” that we’re used to seeing from black hip hop artists. The music started playing cuing the end of the speech, and Chance repeated his opening lines again: “Glory be to God! I claim this victory in the name of the Lord!” He sounded mo…
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…harnessing our collective intelligence and technological capabilities to explore a truly alien landscape. I am reminded of how both the text and radio broadcast of War of the Worlds occurred at moments of great population and political shifts in the United Kingdom and the United States. Aliens, vampires, and other monsters—these otherworldly beings are often metaphors for our this-worldly ways of organizing difference. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen calls…
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…“wholesome family values,” Goldberg overlooks what lies much deeper than sex phobia in the hearts of anxious white Christians. What claims their most passionate loyalty by far—and what raises their hackles when it’s called into question—is the religion of America itself: a religion centered in the idea of American Innocence and the corollary conviction that no one who chronicles the rise of This Great Country of Ours should be allowed to question…
Read More…as revealed that he was gay and had threatened to deport an undocumented Mexican ex-boyfriend. Yet Romney forges on, with his advisors proclaiming confidence in their deep pockets and ability to buy airtime, even though the campaign’s ground game is not as strong as it may seem. That ground-level weakness reflects the foundational flaw of the Romney campaign. Romney banked on the idea that conservative Christian voters would come around—with enoug…
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…she has in her forty books and one hundred articles, for a rejection of sexism and sexual pathology, an embrace of other cultures and religions, an option for the poor and a focus on the environment. Facing entrenched Vatican power, can one conclude that she is deluded, masochistic? Are millions of progressive Catholics who share her views deluded, engaged in a futile exercise? That is always a possibility. The direction of the Roman administrati…
Read More…peats that she is a straight up atheist, not agnostic, not wondering. Safe bet that this is the most often the word ‘atheist’ has been used in a single episode of a network drama. The wrinkle is that her daughter is part of a youth-y evangelical group, having converted a few seasons back. The writers use her for comic effect sometimes, as when the grownups are in crisis around the kitchen table and you suddenly hear a group of teenage girls beltin…
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…re left with an even bigger problem than before: Who made this ultra-complex God? A hyper-complex megaGod? It makes plain sense, according to Occam’s razor, to stop before we get to the first God. The complex universe is enough. Ergo, in all likelihood, God does not exist. This argument, which boils down to Well, who made God, then?, assumes that God is a thing like any other thing. It assumes that God must exist in the same way the moon exists, i…
Read More…ys 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 right are quick to discard the “Judeo” part of their Judeo-Christian roots when it becomes inconvenient, but Armstrong says they aren’t…
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