Religion Dispatches
…standing. The difficult question is what the state legitimately may do to promote this end. If the state is to intervene on behalf of the reputation and standing of “Muslims,” or any other faith community, it must first decide on whose behalf it is intervening. It must lend its official approval to some idea of what counts as a “real” or “authentic” member of such groups. Were Aan’s expressions hateful or abusive toward Muslims? That depends on w…
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…tices known to subjugate and suppress the political voice of millions of African Americans via mass incarceration remain, on their surface, race-neutral. Legislators in Alabama and elsewhere who enact what amount to immigrant-exclusion acts, and legislators in many of these same states who craft laws aimed at voter suppression, will cite all kinds of reasons why they judge these measures to be necessary. But does anyone doubt that the threat to wh…
Read More…ruary, that Romney was replaced by this one: [W]ithout question, the legal code in this country is based upon Judeo-Christian values and teachings, Biblical teachings, and for the president not to understand that a wide array of religions and a conviction that Judeo-Christian philosophy is an integral part of our foundation is really an extraordinary thing. I think again that the president takes his philosophical leanings in this regard, not from…
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…e in evolution of humans—seems to indicate that a substantial number of Americans are not comfortable affiliating with either “myth” of creation or evolution. Many Americans occupy multiple social collectives, and likely hold shifting opinions about human origins. The statement, “Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process,” allows one to have good science without necessarily get…
Read More…y the MB or a derivative organization. Consequently, most of the Muslim-American groups of any prominence in America are now known to be, as a matter of fact, hostile to the United States and its Constitution.” Based on the ‘explanatory memorandum’ document identifying a number of American Muslim organizations as allies in its author’s aspirations, prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation trial publicly labeled over 200 American Muslim organization…
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…using a litany of biblical texts that support their presuppositions. Historically, this type of application has been on the wrong side of human suffering and inequality. Support for slavery, segregation, denying women the right to vote, the Holocaust, Apartheid, as well as opposing marriage equality have depended on the less-than-adequate arms of biblical orthodoxy for support. This not only requires an ahistorical relationship to the human condi…
Read More…ooklet’s content isn’t religious: This may be the first nonreligious moral code based wholly on common sense. It was written by L. Ron Hubbard as an individual work and it not part of any religious doctrine. Any reprinting or individual distribution of it does not infer connection with or sponsorship of any religious organization. It is therefore admissible for government departments and employees to distribute it as a nonreligious activity. (Repr…
Read More…Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Jesus is lord indeed.” Jesus as Lord of America was also a theme at America for Jesus, as was the need for more “fire” from churches. The line-up included Garlow, Pat Robertson, Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver, pseudo-historian David Barton, self-proclaimed apostle Cindy Jacobs, and many more. Staver asked God to “bring fire to the pulpits,” saying, “we are tired of playing church.” Speakers led group repentance for th…
Read More…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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…ian senator. Some on the right could scarcely believe that this is what America really wants. “Millions of Americans looked evil in the eye and adopted it,” wrote Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver in his post-election commentary. He has a point—except that, for the majority of Americans, the “evil” they looked in the eye was the one they rejected on November 6. Others on the right, like the Rev. Dr. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist…
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