Religion Dispatches
…be noted that in a kind of harmonic convergence of BS, the “Biblical Money Code” appears as a fake news article, or “advertorial,” on Newsmax, the semi-fake news website. Hyman in fact seems to work for the website, although his actual role is unclear—a recent bio says that he is part of its “Financial Brain Trust.” “A wise man looks well into a matter,” Proverbs, and Hyman, reminds us. While I wouldn’t make any claims to wisdom, I will say that I…
Read More…ster reportedly plans quiet wedding Luxembourg’s openly gay Prime Minister Xavier Bettel is reportedly planning to wed his partner next week, but is keeping quiet about the details in what AFP calls “the tiny, conservative and mostly Roman Catholic duchy.” The two have been in a civil union since 2010. Mexico: Abundance of patience and pesos needed to get marriage ‘amparo’ We have been reporting on the ongoing spread of marriage to same-sex couple…
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…pressed necrophilia, but I think there’s something more mundane about the axis binding sex and death. To have sex appeal is to wield a particular kind of power; to be sexy is something more—to be powerful and at ease about that power at the same time. What could be sexier than nonchalance in the face of killing? On-screen fictions are fantasies, and there is something fraught about moralizing your way through the collective dreamspace. So, withhol…
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…The bylaws extend Sharia to non-Muslims and criminalize consensual same-sex sexual acts as well as all zina (sexual relations outside of marriage). The criminal code permits as punishment up to 100 lashes and up to 100 months in prison for consensual same-sex sexual acts, while zina violations carry a penalty of 100 lashes. The Principles of the Islamic Bylaw violate the right to freedom of religion enshrined in the Indonesian constitution and in…
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…ith an anonymous email to NPR later in the day on April 9, in which the hoaxer explained that, “unequivocally my intent was not to defame Mr. Osteen,” but rather, “to stage, for a moment, a plausible scenario of his hypothetical resignation” and to “test viral media markets.” Tribble himself came forward for several public interviews on April 10, including one for GMA, in which he argued that he had conducted a “media campaign,” not a hoax, and ur…
Read More…mith to interview current and former athletes of color who had a positive experience with BYU and the Honor Code: “If Darron Smith wasn’t so hell bent on exposing BYU, the Church and the honor code office as racists, he’d find out that for every Thomas Stancil, Tico Pringle and Ray Hudson, there’s a Brandon Davies, Reno Mahe and Brian McDonald, the latter of which recovered from an alcohol-related probation, joined the Church and served a mission…
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…us going as a political movement was … the IRS [decision] to rescind the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University [for] its racially discriminatory policies. In the face of failed attempts to reverse the Roe decision and despite enduring majority support for it, anti-abortion white supremacists have worked to escalate their efforts using an unscientific concern for women’s safety to deny life-saving reproductive health care to women and to demoni…
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…e fish and birds earlier, before God created humans (1:22). These are not exceptional, exclusively human charges, but are what all living beings should do. Life is about bursting forth, growing, and filling. You could even argue that these are not really commandments at all but simply descriptions of what animal life naturally does. As in, “you do you.” The last two imperatives, however, are for humans only: “subdue” and “have dominion” or “rule”…
Read More…of largely unwritten assumptions guides how, when, and in what manner to express or not express these rights. It’s when the code that translates these rights for us somehow ceases to function properly in the background that problems result. I want to suggest that often when problems crop up around religious or religiously-motivated speech in the United States, they often have less to do with rights per se than with the unwritten code that determi…
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…urch-state conflicts from the jurisdiction of the federal courts. For context, the position to which Brownback has been nominated has existed since 1998; if confirmed by the Senate, Brownback would be the fifth Ambassador-at-Large leading the office within the State Department. He would succeed Rabbi David Saperstein, who was nominated to the post by President Obama, and who was the first Jewish (and non-Christian) person to hold the position. Sap…
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