Religion Dispatches
…rence to “religious freedom” from Romney. Insiders know that the latter is code for exempting individuals and institutions from following government mandates on health care and provisions on anti-discrimination. But to the middle, Romney’s comment surely passed under the radar. And as for Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, even Paul Ryan is for that now. All this in the shadow of an unprecedented legal war against women’s reproductive choices, and an ever-morp…
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…demonstrates, are “myths,” or paradigmatic models of reality that help us code our visions of the world and inform our social vocabularies, conceptions of self, and varying personal relationships. One’s views about the origins of humanity signal special allegiance, at the moment, to a broad social collective and a general worldview. In short, whether you are a die-hard secularist or an adamant creationist, you subscribe to a large and complex nar…
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…nterviewed). The 1993 Alabama State Department of Education Administrative Code prohibits public school personnel from using “any techniques that involve the induction of hypnotic states, guided imagery, meditation or yoga,” and defines yoga as “a Hindu philosophy and method of religious training in which eastern meditation and contemplation are joined with physical exercises, allegedly to facilitate the development of body-mind-spirit.” The propo…
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…sociation in 2002 for violations of six different provisions of its ethics code, including provisions that prohibit counselors from “seek[ing] to meet their personal needs at the expense of clients,” taking advantage of the “trust and dependency of clients,” and deceptive promotion of products. At Wyler’s Arizona retreat, I was introduced to that healing touch therapy: I sat on the floor between the outstretched legs of a camp guide, my head leani…
Read More…in: “on the right path of religion.” While it does refer to Islamic moral code, it’s hardly a formal or well-defined set of rules and is often the source of much disagreement and debate amongst the most revered legal scholars. The Michele Bachmanns and Louis Ghomerts of the world, however, have convinced many people that Sharia is epitomized by rare instances of hand chopping, hangings, and other gory punishments. It’s doubtful that the governors…
Read More…e of the Muslim faith mirrors that of many Americans. “Islam” has become a code word for terrorism. In fact, it is the name of a monotheistic faith tradition based on the Qur’an which is practiced by more than 1.6 billion people, nearly a quarter of the world. Its practitioners are referred to as Muslims. So our popular pedagogy must begin in order to right the wrongs of misinformation and demagoguery. Just as Christianity and Judaism have many ex…
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…n two decades, he not only advocated violence against LGBT people but also promoted the view that homosexuality is being pushed onto Africa by the West. He threatened to execute gay people by having their heads cut off and is believed to have supported the arrest, detention and torture of a number of people on suspicion of homosexuality by the country’s National Intelligence Agency. While Barrow has so-far espoused a far more democratic and human…
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…ignificance is not support for communities of color or fairness in the tax code, but rather alignment with cosmic forces of enlightenment, it makes some sense. Post-millennial lefties tend to be really scary, or really wacky, or both. In pop culture, they inhabit films like Fight Club or the latest Batman flick: utopian idealists who will use any means, including violence, to bring about the transformation they seek. In practice, though, they tend…
Read More…t Buttigieg (and all the other candidates) to read Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society, and internalize its lessons. Social leaders who want to effect meaningful change are condemned to represent the interests of their group, even though doing so might contradict their personal moral code. The short version of Niebuhr is that you can lead or you can have clean hands, not both. In 2019 America, that means you can embrace the people who are actu…
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…d not permit boys and girls to talk to each other, demanded a strict dress code, taught that girls should never run, and demanded that girls style their hair wavy—not straight or curly—because “wavy hair is attractive and becoming—it causes you to focus on the woman’s face instead of her body.” Gothard’s approved wavy hairstyle is meant, she said, “to attract men to your bright eyes, which will attract them to God, instead of your body.” Eliza ela…
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