Religion Dispatches
…Paul did embrace social media as it existed then. He was the first pope to use SMS to send out a daily message to Catholics in 2004, after brokering a deal with Verizon—one of the first troubling commercial agreements between the Vatican and communications companies. For the most part, though, communications technologies at this time seemed a grand and wonderful thing, enabling the sharing of God’s truths with many in an easy and effective way. In…
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…ding from the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute’s sample academic freedom bill, explicitly says that teachers are permitted to use supplemental materials to teach critiques of evolution and opens the door to teaching creationism and intelligent design. In response, SICB chose to hold its annual conference in Utah, whose state Board of Education recently passed a resolution recognizing that “the Theory of Evolution is a major unifying conc…
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…ose behavior is calculated to be disastrous.” Calculated disaster: 4chan’s users couldn’t have described their ambitions in better terms. The “Message to Scientology” proudly proclaims: “We are your SPs.” Nevertheless, Anonymous took the criticisms of the old guard to heart, particularly Mark Bunker’s suggestion that the group attempt to have the Church’s tax-exempt status in the United States revoked. (In the UK, where Chanology protests have dra…
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…tual world, but as someone who teaches about race, and slavery, you can be free even if others don’t think you are, or are worthy of being free. The bigger question that goes alongside of this is: can you become divine if you’re not real? Hmmn. That brings up all sorts of issues, especially if, as it seems presently, the writers are making this new religion suspiciously like Catholicism. I hope that the writers won’t go in the easy direction of co…
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…The church must remain clear that pornography is not essentially wrong because it is addictive, but because of its titillating and deceptive message: it rips sexuality from its relational context and presents human beings not as creatures made in God’s image, but as sexual commodities, something to be bought and sold.” Johnson’s comment about Roe v. Wade curtailing the production of “able bodied workers” essential to a thriving economy suggests th…
Read More…ouch says this: We at Christianity Today believe Christians are absolutely free to use marijuana (where legalized). And, when it comes to pot in our particular cultural context, we think it would be foolish to use that freedom. For the CT editors, the moral quality of marijuana use seems to depend entirely upon the “cultural context” in which it occurs. And since our particular context is not conducive to marijuana use, marijuana use would be “foo…
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…ethamphetamine, xenon, ibogaine, bufotenine, and LSD. Although the show focuses on users and researches of the drugs in question, Morris often acts as a participant-observer, using the drugs himself to report their effects. Whatever the drug in question, however, the narrative always seems to circle back to questions relating to religion, in both explicit and inexplicit ways. Morris doesn’t so much present theses about the relationship between rel…
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…ace Force: God’s hand will guide these space soldiers in their “defense of freedom”—that is, the freedom of commercial enterprise. The administration advertised the biblical foundations of its protectionist pursuit of dominance in space with a ceremony at the Washington National Cathedral on January 12th, 2020. At an event that conflated Christian supremacism with American exceptionalism, the first Chief of Space Operations was sworn in on a King…
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…n that was never shared. As my progeny, Karis possesses some of my genetic code. Furthermore, since we live in the same house and share daily experience, I also have contributed to her cultural DNA. Even as relatives who share so much, Karis and I must exercise patience if we are to genuinely hear, and be heard by, the other. If an abiding commitment to patience is necessary for healthy communication between blood relatives, how much more patience…
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…create advanced pharmaceuticals and treatments for conditions including diabetes, hemophilia, and hepatitis. Genetic disorders can be curbed, and perhaps in the future, eradicated. At the same time, GM foods have caused considerable ethical controversy over the potential for unknown harm. Particularly in Europe, Japan, and parts of Africa, the uproar over untested, unlabeled GM foods in the food supply has been dramatic. Some of the controversy ca…
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