Religion Dispatches
…conic atheist Sam Harris, troubled by the continued criticism of his 2010 book The Moral Landscape, has decided to hold an essay contest: $20,000 dollars to the one who persuades him that the central thesis of his book is wrong (or $2000 to the overall best essay). So how do you, dear reader, craft an argument that will make the famously stubborn Sam Harris change his mind? Just follow these three suggestions and you’ll stand a very good chance of…
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…oth: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family, I chronicle a grassroots movement to provide interfaith education for interfaith children. In interfaith family communities in Chicago, New York, and Washington, Jewish and Christian educators are working side by side in dual-faith classrooms, comparing and contrasting, and noting points of historical connection. They teach texts and rituals and history, not creed or dogma. In response to the…
Read More…on, in the name and power of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Paprocki said. “Be uprooted and put to flight from the Church of God from souls created in the image of God and redeemed by the precious blood of the divine lamb. “Dare no more, oh cunning serpent, to deceive the human race, to persecute the church of God, to shake the chosen of God and sift them like wheat,” he continued. In an unusual use of public services, the exorcism included two armed Spr…
Read More…tion’s oldest Mormon LGBT group. Some held signs quoting a verse from the Book of Mormon: “All are alike unto God.” Nineteen LDS marchers held the Affirmation banner in Houston, as did an estimated 100 LDS LGBT and allied marchers in Santiago de Chile. The largest contingent of the weekend gathered in San Francisco, where more than 100 LDS people gathered to march behind the Mormons for Marriage Equality banner, winning the parade’s award for “Abs…
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…Conference of Women Religious, the gentlemen have shown their prowess by choosing to investigate the Girl Scouts of the USA. Which would be comical—first the nuns, now the Girl Scouts—if the goal were not so pernicious and the outcome so damaging, especially to the bishops. The tactics against the girls and the women are taken from one playbook, the goal of intimidation is the same, and the pushback in both cases is distracting from more pressing…
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…rucially important. Much credit for this goes to the nimble and effective coordinating work of Interfaith Worker Justice, the Chicago-based umbrella group for dozens of local and regional religion-labor coalitions across the country. One reason religious types have come to the defense of public sector workers is the blatant unfairness of the new attacks mounted by GOP governors like Walker, Kasich, and Daniels. Many faith leaders see how conservat…
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…st, “great minds” loved him, yoga was eventually co-opted by New Age baby boomers, and it all went downhill from there. Before Vivekananda came to the United States with his version of yoga and gave his famous speech to the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, which triggered the speaking tour that would take him all over the country, other Americans’ embrace of yoga was stirring plenty of conversation. Consider Pierre Bernard, a t…
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…n February? Ah, not so. As Nick Baumann reports for Mother Jones: The backdoor reintroduction of the statutory rape change relies on the use of a committee report, a document that congressional committees produce outlining what they intend a piece of legislation to do. If there’s ever a court fight about the interpretation of a law—and when it comes to a subject as contentious as abortion rights, there almost always is—judges will look to the comm…
Read More…tter? here. Transcript: REV. C. WELTON GADDY, HOST: Pastor Rob Bell’s new book “Love Wins: [A Book About] Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived” debuted at #2 on the New York Times best-seller list. Here’s the description: “Rob Bell addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith-the afterlife-arguing, would a loving God send people to eternal torment forever…? Bell puts hell on trial, and his message is decidedly hopefu…
Read More…s first.” Beck followed up by asking if he was calling for “some loyalty proof” for Muslims. Cain said, “Yes, to the Constitution of the United States of America.” When Beck then asked “Would you do that to a Catholic or would you do that to a Mormon?” Cain told the host, “Nope, I wouldn’t.” Yesterday, Robert P. George, the Princeton University professor, author of the Manhattan Declaration, and founder of the American Principles Project, brought…
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