Religion Dispatches
…ew Birth are in trouble again, this time over video gaming machines. Fox 5 Atlanta has an expose about Ephren Taylor, who Long introduced to the church as “his friend and brother,” allowing Taylor to make a financial presentation about investing in his video game machines. Parishioners who invested at their bishop’s recommendation, according to the report, “instead of making big profits, they found that Ephren Taylor’s company that sold them the s…
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…bar car!” It was through the patience and love of his friend D.E. Paulk in Atlanta (whose ministry family suffered its own scandals), that Bakker experienced what he called “a grace evolution.” While Bakker continued to drink and carry on, D.E. simply loved him through it, gently pushing Bakker to return to God. Bakker writes that he had believed grace to be “a cop-out… an excuse to sin.” But once he began studying, reading Paul in particular, Bak…
Read More…rt of something that nearly half of the nation thinks is already as out as last year’s Prada shoes? Then, I thought, perhaps gays and lesbians can be the savior for marriage. Just as many old neighborhoods in my hometown of Atlanta were saved by gays and lesbians buying dilapidated houses and renovating them, why can’t gays and lesbians rehab marriage? Gays and lesbians are clamoring for the right to get married. Obviously, within our community th…
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…ishment.” Peterson’s comment points to why Vick didn’t receive similar backlash or accusations of insincerity after his Super Bowl breakfast speech. Redemption comes at a price—he’s recognized his error, he’s paid the price, he’s learned from his misdeed, and he’s dedicated, in God’s name, to turning his life around. In his complaints about Vick, Peterson criticized others in the spotlight who had “abused Jesus’ name” in order to absolve their tra…
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…that they’re targeting a group that today helps a lot of poor and working-class women.” But Last’s WSJ review highlights a potential problem for pro-choice advocates in Hvistendahl’s work. As he explains: Despite the author’s intentions, Unnatural Selection might be one of the most consequential books ever written in the campaign against abortion. It is aimed, like a heat-seeking missile, against the entire intellectual framework of “choice.” For…
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…shills. Back in the early 90s, I worked with Sean Hannity at WGST Radio in Atlanta just as he got his big call to go to New York and work for FOX. Every day Hannity would rail against gays and lesbians, stirring up hatred and strife against them. Then, at lunch, he and his openly lesbian producer would head out for a friendly meal together. Before Sean left, I approached him in his office and asked if, for his last show, he’d lay off the gay baiti…
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…Washington Post called out Christians in Kentucky for public-school Bible classes that arguably cross the constitutional line between teaching about the Bible and practicing religious devotion to the Bible. The American Civil Liberties Union has threatened to file suit. In March, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported on a more unusual lawsuit over religion in public schools. A federal judge in Georgia sent to jury trial—slated for next fall—a…
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…onflicts come up. But that’s the world we live in; sometimes we can use a classroom like a laboratory to explore them. LH: Exactly—your last point hits the core of my reasoning for studying religion. If nothing else, I can come up with sociological questions in class and think about how religious commitments affect the lives of my classmates. Because isn’t that the point of Religious Studies? This probably sounds cliché, but I really believe that…
Read More…ed that: Last June Georgia’s former GOP House minority leader, Bob Irvin, blasted Reed in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-ed. “His M.O. is to tell evangelical Christians that his cause of the moment, for which he has been hired, is their religious duty,” Irvin fumed. “As an evangelical myself, I resent Christianity being used simply to help Reed’s business.” Irvin’s dart went straight to the heart of the matter. While grassroots organizing has…
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…t to break down. An activist friend of mine who works with Muslim women in Atlanta said that she couldn’t do her work if she didn’t have the work of scholars who interpret Islam. But scholars tend to be a lot more wary about affirming how much they need people like you to get the word out in a more public kind of way. They need to find a way to work with those who reach out in new ways. I would entirely agree with your activist friend who says tha…
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