Religion Dispatches
…ose either secretly or overtly a Taliban-like, religious, strict religious code upon all Americans, which is ridiculous.” Honor killings, forced marriages, female genital mutilation, and other abuses are “un-Islamic,” he said, adding that there is “no debate among serious Muslim scholars about that.” As far as fear-mongering that that Muslims seek to supplant the Constitution with shari’ah, Khan noted, “there is room for individual religious pract…
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…s and satyagraha. Rejecting the claim that the Jewish tradition has always promoted a form of passive resistance in the face of oppression, Gandhi stated: The Jews, so far as I know, have never practiced nonviolence as an article of faith or even a deliberate policy. Indeed it is a stigma against them that their ancestors crucified Jesus. Are they not supposed to believe in ‘eye for an eye and tooth for tooth?’ Have they no violence in their heart…
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…First, Douthat warns of encroaching “scientism” which, in this context, is code for failing to believe the supernatural truth claims of Christianity. Second, paradoxically, Douthat perceives a tendency among non-religious people to embrace the mystical belief systems that he himself rejects, like astrology or wellness. (So much for scientism!) Yet we don’t see any actual evidence that these trends are as widespread among the deconverted as he sugg…
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…ovidential success derived from the nation’s fidelity to God’s unforgiving code. It is easy to be seduced by these beliefs into some very strange conclusions. Christianity, after all, is not Judaism, and the Christian religion begins with the assumption that it is not about nation-building or Kingdom-creation anymore. The “Kingdom of God” that Jesus preached is precisely not the Kingdom of Judah; it took the disciples quite some time to get this p…
Read More…icrobe cells, mutated cells. We are built, too, of our parents, of genetic code and flesh and blood and bones that grow inside of flesh and blood and bones. So we come again to the parents: “There is only one thing in this world shittier than biting it from cancer when you’re sixteen, and that’s having a kid who bites it from cancer,” Hazel tells us. Green, who is now the parent of two children, told The New Yorker’s Margaret Talbot, that his own…
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…ionists’ latest strategy. His is merely relying on what Forrest calls the “code words.” But their long-term goals remain the same: To get God into science class. The full statement in the Texas standards reads: “The student is expected to analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information.” (Italics added.) McLeroy considers common…
Read More…ers listened to Sarah Palin’s convention address expecting heavy religious code, the scriptural allusions that have come to be standard fare in speeches by Republicans and Barack Obama. There wasn’t much—“a servant’s heart,” a prayer for her son sent off to war. But there was, for those with ears to hear it, a far more disturbing allusion: to Westbrook Pegler, a mid-century Rush Limbaugh, and then some. At the height of his popularity, he was more…
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…in 100 years.” It isn’t a stretch to say that his invocation of “truth” is code for conservative Christian dogma; his real problem with Harvard—and academia in general—is that its scholars do not defer to such dogma. But there’s no need to stretch as Santorum explicitly linked higher education to the work of Satan in a 2008 speech (which has recently gone viral) at Florida’s Ave Maria University. The intimate connection between these views and his…
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…ive, suggested that these invocations of prayers and positive thoughts are code words for deliberate political inaction by elected officials. The theological commentary on this shooting is what my grandmother would describe as “too heavenly minded and no earthly good.” These conversations about prayer reflect a graver moral issue than “prayer shaming” during a time of tragedy. Since the beginning of this year, 12,223 people have been killed in gun…
Read More…s of the military, and that is protecting us from our enemies. The Uniform Code of Military Justice also prohibits things like adultery, so as we look at this slippery slope we’re on, what is the next step? Will we see a move to strike down that prohibition as well? Jackson and others speaking at the press conference also repeated the charge that repeal of DADT will cripple chaplains who will be forced to “water down their teachings” or perhaps ev…
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