…and affirms the stained-glass ceiling on the pastoral role of women: “the reservation of the priesthood to males … is not a question open to discussion” (#103). Francis further worried that a discussion on women’s ordination “can prove especially divisive if sacramental power is too closely identified with power in general”—as if the “reservation of the priesthood to males” had nothing whatsoever to do “with power in general” (#104). Evangelii Ga…
First, Glenn Beck goes off the conservative reservation by declaring that same-sex marriage is no threat to America by saying: “I believe that Thomas Jefferson said, ‘If it neither breaks my leg or picks my pocket, what difference is it to me?’” Then, the notoriously homophobic Ann Coulter gets booked to headline next month’s “Homocon,” an event put on by GOProud, a group of gay Republicans. Coulter’s willingness to talk to gay Republicans got Wo…
…ne, no credentialed specialists in religious studies were appointed to the official review panels. Furthermore, the official review process is tightly restricted in both time and scope. Official reviewers have only one week to review all textbooks—an absurdly short time. My review of world geography and world history texts took over three months of full-time work. And the official reviewers are charged only with checking that the textbooks comply…
By Randall Balmer, Anthea Butler, Evan Derkacz, Jeff Sharlet, and Diane Winston
…ng an imperial vision of American power that imposes its hybrid-version of American democracy/American gods around the world through support of dictators considered “men of God” (Haiti’s Papa Doc Duvalier, for whom Family members arranged congressional support, Efrain Rios Montt, the Guatemalan killer championed by Pat Robertson, etc.). That, sadly, is the link between the killer bunny and its ostensible victim, fundamentalism and the establishmen…
…re essentially Christian Zionists. Their “homeland” mentality was quite un-American. True, many American groups, not just hyperreligious ones, have looked upon the United States as a providential nation; a place prepared for them by God. But a providential nation is different than a providential homeland. The word “homeland” has become so charged—and now so banal—since 9/11 that we have forgotten that the United States is, in terms of political sc…
…Listen to RD senior correspondent Haroon Moghul discuss his new memoir How to Be a Muslim with Terry Gross on Fresh Air. For more, read RD’s 10Q with Haroon….
…he Vatican to discipline Antwerp Bishop Johan Bonny, who, according to LifeSite News, suggests in a new book published Friday that homosexual pairs, divorced, remarried and cohabiting couples should receive a Church blessing as part of a ‘diversity of rituals’ that would recognized the ‘exclusiveness and stability’ of their unions.” Northern Ireland: Court upholds ruling against bakery in gay cake case “Court of Appeal judges in Belfast upheld an…
…complex cultural systems, and the toxic mixture that comes together in the American Redoubt movement represents a feedback loop between American-style white supremacist patriarchy on the one hand, and the varieties of Christianity that have been invoked throughout U.S. history to uphold it, on the other. A similar dynamic can be observed in the conspiratorial John Birch Society (JBS), in which Catholic and Protestant members come together in advoc…
…ten have an “unofficial” monastic population that can be up to half of the official number of resident monks—a kind of waiting list. Although residents of the monasteries, where they work and study, these unofficial monks and nuns have little status and no real privileges in these institutions. (For example, they are not allowed to receive a share of monetary contributions made to the clergy by the laity.) Whereas monks and nuns used to be the one…
…so I discovered that the sociological data suggested that the majority of Americans believe in ghosts or demons. Indeed, a surprising 73% of Americans have at least one paranormal belief, and while the data is less robust it looks like there are similar belief patterns in Western Europe. At the very least, it seems hard to argue that the “modern West” is straightforwardly disenchanted. So I asked myself how did we get the notion that “modernity”…
