Religion Dispatches
…ion and, intriguingly, that he “adds to that diversity,” which is probably code for a less-than-orthodox approach to the faith. Huntsman is helped also by the fact that whereas Mormonism may be the most intriguing thing about candidate Romney, candidate Huntsman plays rock-and-roll and rides motorcycles. 3. He needs to show well in New Hampshire, but it’s South Carolina he is banking on. His campaign team is already heavy with recycled McCain pers…
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…ot to pay for your bags of fudge rounds It’s hard not to read “welfare” as code. Welfare has long been used in conservative circles as a dog whistle for Black people, immigrants, and others who are supposedly too lazy to work and thus draining the life from our society. The idea of the “welfare queen,” a single Black urban mother, was introduced by Ronald Reagan in 1976: “At a campaign rally in 1976, Ronald Reagan introduced the welfare queen into…
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…to resistance within the family structure that allowed for them to be here today. That’s a really important component of this project. People are desiring to heal, but they’re also desiring to affirm the power of resistance to social forces. It seems a lot of black women who came to this exhibit saw it as a sacred space and described it as similar to going to church. How does this space stand as an alternative to spaces like the black church where…
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…than thinking about the self as being a language—as being like a computer code that speaks—we think about the self as a cluster of forces. [These forces] make us what we are, and our decisions come from that rather than from this linguistic layer, which is actually constituted by that more fundamental cluster of forces. That’s what I see affect theory doing: upsetting this idea that human beings start with language and that we do what we do becau…
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…ly career-ending situation in the Marines, where failure to obtain regular promotions results in being discharged. Moreover, as a woman in the military, accustomed to proving herself to her male peers over her six-year career, Amy was wary of appearing a “weak female.” “If you get sent home for something like that, everyone will know about it,” says Amy. “That’s a really bad stigma in the military. I thought, that’s not me, I’ve worked harder and…
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…s history, the CHPP blames Israeli protesters and—again, using antisemitic code—their supposed “globalist” funders for dividing Israeli society. (To add to the irony, just last week U.S. evangelical groups railed against Netanyahu’s far-right government for authoring a bill that would limit Christian groups’ ability to proselytize in Israel. In response, Netanyahu froze the bill). This isn’t the first time Christian Zionists have condemned Jews wh…
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…nd active commitment to “social justice,” something that Beck has said are code words for Communism and Nazism. Look, Frank Capra wasn’t exactly known for his subtle messages. Yet, somehow, Beck manages to reinterpret the movie through an unregulated free-market ideological Ayn Rand prism and message of Christian conservatism. For real? Either Beck has never watched the movie, or he’s so conservatively deluded that he thinks Mr. Potter is the hero…
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…etter-balanced understanding of the impact of religion on American society today.” But equating “the production of economic value” with “positive impact on society” seems disingenuous. And that apparent desire to overcorrect may have led to the study’s biggest problem. Other than a brief mention in their introduction and conclusion, the study doesn’t consider ways in which religion might detract from economic production. Devoting a half dozen sent…
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…d vengeance. At least in theory, those principles shape our justice system today. In practice, we aren’t always so guided by calm reason and conscience. For example, while Tsarnaev’s lawyers plan his appeal against the death penalty, he is being held at the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, the highest-security prison in the country, which the New York Times called “America’s Toughest Federal Prison.” Most in…
Read More…efs; and is a non-profit organization as described in the Internal Revenue Code. Religious organizations protested that this four-pronged test would only exempt houses of worship, but not, say, a church that served people of different faiths through a soup kitchen. Under the new proposed rule (which is still subject to a public comment period), an employer seeking an exemption would only have to meet the forth prong of the test, thus widely expand…
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