Religion Dispatches
…they came out as an atheist, compared to only 35 percent of respondents in Canada, 24 percent of Australians, 15 percent of residents of United Kingdom, and 12 percent of Western Europeans. The post sparked a great discussion in the comment thread from readers. Many of the comments were from atheists and non-believers who told poignant stories about being ostracized by family members once they came “out of the closet,” so to speak. So, recently a…
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…ed Nations might be described as one tiny country in Europe plus the U.S., Canada, and Israel, against the rest of the planet (a world map only underlines this). Even Germany, a historically strong supporter of Israel, chose to abstain instead of voting no, as it was expected to. Hence an undisputed Israeli military victory was also a diplomatic defeat. Writing for the London Review of Books, Adam Shatz explained Israel didn’t win the short war….
Read More…taree Christian Militia got me thinking of Ann Coulter’s recent remarks in Canada to a 17-year-old Muslim girl that all Muslims should be banned from flying on planes. Coulter then told the girl that if she couldn’t get where she wanted to go on her magic carpet, she should “take a camel.” The details of the militia, which had been planning an epic war with the Anti-Christ, are still emerging, but the story makes clear the inherent danger in using…
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…treaming of Islamic imperialism is under way.” More partisan outlets, like Canada’s National Post, do not hesitate to call Ramadan a covert extremist. Throughout much criticism of Ramadan there is the notion that he is pulling off some kind of elaborate charade, passing as “modern” and “Western” when he is really, essentially “Islamic,” a closet booster for theocracy, ready to applaud the imposition of Sharia on the citizenry of the world. Such th…
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…ng event in Sedona cost each participant more than $9,000. A search of any number of Web sites advertising these “Indian ceremonies” will turn up sweat lodges that average over $100 per event, and four-day “vision quests” going for around five hundred dollars, “all meals included” and “Visa and MasterCard accepted.” Indians all across the country are upset, saying white people stole the land, killed the buffalo, and now want to steal the religion….
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…rther impetus by the “Latter Rain Movement” which arose out of revivals in Canada. Focusing on extraordinary outpourings of the Holy Spirit, including spectacular spiritual manifestations, believers and leaders in the movement like William Branham believed these manifestations would usher in the second coming of Christ. The movement caused splits within several Pentecostal denominations, most notably the Assemblies of God. Unlike the Word of Faith…
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…ay Comfort, led a crusade at college campuses around the United States and Canada, distributing free altered copies of Origin of Species. Because Origin is in the public domain, Comfort was legally able to add to the book his own new 50-page introduction, in which he quotes from Mein Kampf in order to link Darwin to Adolf Hitler, accuses Darwin of being sexist, and argues falsely that there are no transitional fossils in the fossil record. Next mo…
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…be found in art. In 2007, although living in the Northwest Territories of Canada, I went on a ten-day pilgrimage to Rome with feminists of faith led by Christine Schenk, CSJ of Future Church in Cleveland and taught by archeologist Dorothy Irvin. We too, as Brock and Parker, crept through the catacombs of Rome, discovering around every corner “ah-hah” moments. Our detective eye was focused on women in leadership in the early church. And we found t…
Read More…esident of Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada, and Melissa Rogers, the Director of Wake Forest University Divinity School’s Center for Religion and Public Affairs. What’s troubling about their signatures, however, is that each of them sits on President Obama’s advisory council for the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. One of the mandates of this office includes “beyond American shores this Off…
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…f treating “Muhammad as punk rocker?” BU: What an ignorant question. Anglophone world? Punk is ten times bigger in Kuala Lampur than it ever will be in the UK, France, or Germany. Or America. No, the reason for forming the Dead Bhuttos, and the rush to put a single online was to show, at least cosmetically, that Pakistan was as capable of putting out punk rock as Turkey, Malaysia, Japan, and Lebanon. The USA is good to sell obscure Malaysian and…
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