Religion Dispatches
…stential questions that have underwritten all the religions—and most civil codes of law—throughout human history: Who am I? What am I serving that will outlive me and carry my love and my work forward? How should I live so that when I look back on my life, whether a year or decades from now, I can honestly be glad I’ve lived the way I did? Theologians, ministers, and active congregants may say, correctly, that their religions still offer some resp…
Read More…istian, denominations. A study by the Military Association of Atheist and Freethinkers (MAAF)—the group that put Bradley in contact with the ACLU—reported that nearly 97% of military chaplains are Christian (63% Evangelical), while Christian service members make up 70% of the population. Currently no Humanist or Atheist chaplains approved for military service, though MAAF reports that there are a number of Atheist and Humanist chaplain assistants…
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…legal system of nation states today. Apostasy is only a crime in the penal codes of four or five out of the 40 Muslim-majority countries today. Dr. Luttwak claims that “another provision of Muslim law… prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing.” This claim implies that there is something called “Muslim law,” which is either the law of the land or overrides that law in pre…
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…in light of the preference of the choosing subject is a basic condition of freedom. King saw freedom as a moral right. Thus, King was on the side of freedom. However, freedom can be complex. King would have likely challenged the idea of subjectivity as it relates to the freedom of choice of all subjects involved, forcing us to sit with the possible tensions of our choices and one’s moral right to choose. In the end I think King would have upheld w…
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…same Torah and commentaries, study the same Talmud, live by the same legal codes, and adhere to the same basic belief system. Yes, the haredim have a very narrow reading of these sources but it’s a safe bet that they can cite chapter and verse to support their views—often more adroitly than their modern counterparts. In his Mishneh Torah (Code of Law), Maimonides explicitly advocated the position that women should stay mostly in their homes. The k…
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…s to be manly in contemporary Quebec, and certainly different than ancient Ethiopia. Not to wade too much into contemporary debates, but gender construction, both in its perception and performance, is highly dependent on culture. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing? I am a straight, white, Evangelical Protestant male, and I grew up among a lot of folks just like me. While I do not share a lot of political views with the people th…
Read More…and famine currently occurring in eastern Africa. You see, countries like Ethiopia and Somalia have experienced a terrible drought this year that is threatening more than 14 million Africans. As the food prices have skyrocketed due to the famine, millions are in danger of starvation. Relief organizations are quickly working to bring in desperately-needed food and medical supplies. But unless relief is provided within the next couple of months, mi…
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…ath, and a celebration of possibility in traditions from China to Egypt to Ethiopia. Bread is ritually important in a Judeo-Christian context, but not in Asian religious traditions; and its non-universality, writes Plate, makes bread like religion: “It has some basic ingredients…and serves certain purposes…but when we get down to the nitty-gritty of it, the similarities between traditions can be difficult to sniff out.” Telling the history of reli…
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…boteau’s divine travelogue, a journey to locations from Israel to Jamaica, Ethiopia to Ghana, that have been configured as “Zion” for Black Americans. Along the way, Raboteau explicates everything from Afrocentric religions like Rastafarianism, to legacies of colonialism in Africa. If religion is anything, it’s a collective exercise in identity discovery and invention, and by thinking about “Zion” in all of its multitude, Raboteau is able to demon…
Read More…hops in the church. Not coming out, he says, amounts to “moral cowardice.” Ethiopia: Religious Activists Push for Harsher Anti-Gay Laws Addis Ababa municipal officials approved an anti-gay rally – billed as a protest “against foreign culture and homosexuality” – that will be held on April 26. The goal of the event’s organizers seems to be to generate support for strengthening the country’s anti-gay laws – which already have penalties of up to 15…
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