Religion Dispatches
…e is any passion at all in these recitations, it is a passion in the head. Better than none, I suppose. But if we want to galvanize people who themselves are not struggling around the grim state of the economy, reeling off the facts won’t cut it. People must be invited to engage directly with those who suffer: that is where transformation can begin. So yes, religious progressives should at least try to temper the bad habit of imagining they can r…
Read More…iscourse. Sure. He’s racist and sexist. I get that. Is this a problem? You bet! Does it make me cringe? Of course! But is it unfamiliar? Hell no! Racism and sexism are as American and foundational to our cultural make-up as democracy. Imus simply reflects America’s contradictions. What comes to mind for me is the greater problem: the perennial closeting of race and sex. Let’s all say this together: RACISM AND SEXISM EXIST AND ARE INTEGRAL PARTS OF…
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…s the category of “religion.” RFI’s slogan is “Working to Secure Religious Freedom for Everyone, Everywhere.” But, in practice, they seem intent on challenging the freedom of minority religious groups like The Satanic Temple. They conceal this paradox by labeling religions they don’t like as “anti-religion forces.” According to RFI: “To say The Satanic Temple, which rejects God and hates religion, is a religion is to render as nonsense one of the…
Read More…er have and they never will. The coming four years will see a widening gap between the people and their President on this fundamental issue. As Americans come to know how extreme his position is, the intensity of the struggle to protect these children will only increase…” – A Grave Mistake and an Abiding Hope, Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life “The election results and the scandal of the Catholic vote only confirm that we are still suffering fr…
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…up; or in her case, not. I suspect that Judge Noonan was considered a safe bet to balance the pro-choice president: an eminence gris whose conservative Catholic bona fides are polished by his claim that a fetus is essentially a person from the time of conception. Regardless of his intentions, anti-choice people must have been deeply disappointed that he did not take one for the team. Despite his valiant if ineffective effort to link anti-abortion…
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…s likely to say the quiet part out loud, Hyde-Smith would have been a good bet. She joked about sitting in the front row at a public hanging during her campaign to win a senate seat in the state which had the highest number of recorded lynchings. The Christian Nationalist identity draws legitimacy from the motto foisted upon this country during the Civil War and the Red scare. Our government is legitimizing Christian Nationalism. It’s time we get…
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…r what grounds them biologically. Being “created in the image of God” is a better bet. We are all learning together about this, some of us more willing to admit what we do not know than others. But we can certainly agree in the meantime that persons trump genitals, that competence and willingness to serve are far more relevant than gender identity when it comes to Christian life. This means ordination and decision making for women on a par with me…
Read More…is letting its inmates do in-house programming these days. (If it did, I’d bet it would be a far more interesting show.) Since 2006, Hovind has been serving a ten-year prison sentence after being convicted of 58 federal counts, including twelve tax offenses, one count of obstructing federal agents and forty-five counts of structuring cash transactions. Actually, the Creation Series is a DVD featuring many of Hovind’s classic silliness. (His assert…
Read More…DeMint reportedly said that people encouraged him in his position limiting freedom for gays and lesbians, saying he “shouldn’t back down. [The people who agree with him] don’t want government purging their rights and their freedom to religion.” As I reported here months ago, DeMint has been using a Christian Reconstructionist group’s mailing list for fundraising, indicating that, at least in part, he thinks he and they are compatible. Reconstructi…
Read More…l, and hard work. With just enough walk-shoveling. That was always a risky bet for a wonky Yankee Mormon. And evidence suggests that it hasn’t worked: evangelical Christians are consolidating behind Rick Santorum. Had Romney not spent the entire first part of his candidacy trying to pass himself off as a regular Christian conservative, he might be in a position to state the obvious: to take the Republican party by the shoulders and make the case t…
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