Religion Dispatches
…g meals or the “click, click, click” of the computer mouse in response to “free shipping!” “40 % off!” or “Buy one get one free!” in the United States, we are gluttonous consumers of material goods (and food, but that is a whole other subject). The value and consequences of shopping in dominant US culture puts the consumer on a roller-coaster ride. One year we are told that excessive, unwise spending and its resultant debt have led our country int…
Read More…long line which have gradually morphed church-state separation cases into free speech cases — for Christians, that is. In other words, whereas courts used to determine whether religious action (such as use of public school resources for a Bible club) would constitute government endorsement of religion, religious right legal advocacy has altered the jurisprudence to evaluate such questions based on whether the school’s exclusion of the Bible club…
Read More
…ates, self-contain’d, different from others, more expansive, more rich and free, to be evidenced by original authors and poets to come, by American personalities, plenty of them, make and female, traversing the states, none excepted… and by a sublime and serious Religious Democracy sternly taking command, dissolving the old, sloughing off the surfaces, and from its own interior and vital principles reconstructing, democratizing society. A religio…
Read More
…le was emphatic that Christianity was the one thing standing in the way of free market capitalism taking over the United States and ruining the morals of the citizens. He saw Christianity as providing a check on market logics. There have been times when certain forms of Christianity—that of the Transcendentalists in the 1830s and 40s, for instance—exhibited the potential for a gospel of debt forgiveness to stand in opposition to the free market. B…
Read More
…orgiven, confiscated properties are returned, and slaves and prisoners are freed. Osteen’s interpretation turns Jesus’s vision of legal, structural relief for the marginalized into a call for human self-improvement. Laurie and White-Cain present two prevalent views of free will that are often used to support Republican opposition to what they call “Big Government.” Whether believers are supposed to rely more on God or themselves as a hurricane des…
Read More…inciple. As I wrote at the time, Romney had a conundrum: needing to defend free exercise of religion (an in particular, his religion), but realizing that the Republican base demands the “Judeo-Christian” answer. Given that many conservative evangelicals don’t even think Romney’s religion is part of Christianity, when he gave the “Judeo-Christian” answer last night I cringed—because he didn’t balance it with a free exercise answer. In other words,…
Read More
…same-sex attracted, intersex and gender diverse young people.” In order to promote acceptance within these educational environments the resources are captioned with lines such as: “this is a discrimination free zone. Homophobia and transphobia will not be tolerated, K thanks” or “safe schools do better”. As well as posters, the scheme also aims to tackle improper language use – such as “that’s so gay” – by showing children how to use other phrases…
Read More
…bortion.” Sponsored by Catholics for Choice (then known as Catholics for a Free Choice), the full-page New York Times advertisement declared “a diversity of opinions regarding abortion exists among committed Catholics.” Many theologians, the statement read, believed abortion “can sometimes be a moral choice.” Feminist theologian Margaret Farley, novelist Mary Gordon, and then-New York Gov. Mario Cuomo were among the signers. More than two dozen or…
Read More
…oul of their ideology. When the logical endpoint of your understanding of “freedom of religion” is state-sanctioned violence against othered people, I contend that you’re doing freedom of religion wrong. This will bring us back to the prominent theologian I mentioned at the beginning of this article. (You didn’t think I was going to forget about him, did you?) Presbyterian Church of America minster, author, and apologist Tim Keller—he of “sex outs…
Read More
…religious blessing. Robinson, Alston, and producer Sandra Itkoff hope Love Free or Die will motivate people to talk to friends and relatives, and will be a resource for getting more “conflicted Christians” to not only open their hearts but also to change their behavior—including voting. The son and grandson of ministers, Alston says religion is his family business: “My life is tied up in that culture.” Alston is the director of Auburn Media, a pro…
Read More