Religion Dispatches
…“I could have registered to vote there.” Publishers Watching, But Are They Listening? While the code language in the science standards may be vague enough that perhaps writers like Miller can use them to their advantage, the social studies requirements are another story. Many warn that as goes Texas, so goes the nation, since publishers writing textbooks to adhere to Texas’ standards would sell the same or similar versions to other states as well….
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…interests, for some this incident revealed that the people controlling the code have a lot of power. If one thinks that marketing agents put “Bible” in the code, then they might think of them as predatory, or presumptuous about U.S. Christians and their political affiliations. They might become angry that companies have such power in shaping the public’s perception of Christianity and, indeed, in shaping Christians’ own ideas about their communiti…
Read More…positive depictions of LGBT lives. The MDA Free to Air Television Program Code states that “music associated with drugs, alternative lifestyles (e.g. homosexuality) or the worship of the occult or the devil should not be broadcast.” The Free to Air Radio Program Code says “information, themes or subplots on lifestyles such as homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexualism, transsexualism, transvestism, paedophilia and incest should be treated with utmost…
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…ement policies in respective regions or countries, and develop programs to promote religious freedom.” But given Brownback’s history of using “religious freedom” as a sword to discriminate against LGBT people, his nomination offers the strongest evidence yet that, when the Trump administration talks about “religious freedom,” it actually means “Christian supremacy.” Though Brownback an equal-opportunity excluder: the Council on American-Islamic Re…
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…ad; and that Judas died in his place on the cross. Combing Christian canon lists and literature, Toland found references to an otherwise unknown “gospel under the name of Barnabas,” and he concluded that this “Gospel of the Mahometans… very probably is in great part that same book.” For Toland, this was not just another apocryphon. From this “Turkish Gospel being fathr’d upon Barnabas,” he claimed to have been led to recover “the original plan of…
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…inciple that imagining creates reality has captivated modern readers,” the promo copy explains. The publisher probably didn’t expect the book to resonate quite so uncomfortably with the political moment when they chose November 8th—Election Day—as its publication date. But indeed, Donald Trump’s distinctive style has roots in the spiritual tradition of which At Your Command and The Secret are both a part. Neville was just ahead of his time. Born i…
Read More…view LGBT people—as purely sexual beings. Foster’s screed is simply a long promo for a new ex-gay movie coming out, and the trailer, three-minutes of nauseating footage, centers around how each of these former homosexuals lived their lives in clubs, engaging in cheap, easy, and often public sex, or were sexually abused. For all the claptrap the religious right yells about how they don’t want to think of us “that way,” the trailer for the film is p…
Read More…ting international regulations of emissions, calling his views ‘anti-capitalistic and [having] an underlying hatred for America.’ And who will Cizik be voting for come November 4? Unclear. Obama doesn’t have the experience all of us would like. I’m not in Washington to be an advocate for the Republican or the Democratic Party; that’s not my calling. I’m not an ideologue. I do wish Obama had 10 years experience in the Senate and Sarah Palin had [mo…
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…ked five of the writers I trust most—an anthropologist, a historian, a novelist, a journalist, and two media scholars—to share their choices for 2008’s most interesting texts that deal with religion. I say texts because I told them they were free to choose from any media. Being bookish sorts, they mostly stuck to printed pages between two hard covers, but TV, music, movies, and internet found poetry are represented below as well. Following are the…
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…iances between the NCR and neoconservative power brokers. 1) The top of my list revealed: What could top such a list? Since we’re on the subject of disasters today, we might have noted how, amid the response to Hurricane Katrina, George W. Bush’s FEMA hyped Robertson’s philanthropic arm, Operation Blessing. This organization is small and unorthodox at best, and has been accused of various irregularities. Yet early in the crisis it appeared on a FE…
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