Religion Dispatches
…cludes a publishing group, two conference centers, and two online shopping websites. Eric Metaxas is the author of the bestselling biography Bonhoeffer: Pastor Martyr, Prophet, Spy, published by Thomas Nelson. He told me that he thinks the retailer’s decision was “a misunderstanding of God’s idea of holiness.” Metaxas says that when Hollywood makes a film that portrays evangelical Christians in a positive light, Christians should embrace it. “When…
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…is letter at the time it was sent (reproductions of the letter on numerous websites, including Throckmorton’s, do not include his signature, while the letter currently on the Exodus site does). In March 2010, a year after the initial conference, the organization issued a formal public statement opposing the criminalization of homosexuality in Uganda. In contrast to the open letter, this statement was signed by over 50 people in the Exodus network,…
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…groups that support reproductive justice are, for the most part, links to websites where girls can find further information on issues, hardly a ringing endorsement of the groups’ missions. Sex education is not an integral part of scouting; that is something left to families. What is really at issue here is that women and girls involved in the Girl Scouts do not ask permission of ecclesial men to live as responsible citizens of a global world. Gir…
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…nted? I certainly think that the religious right has made it very clear, a number of times, whom they think God would like to be president. That’s not new. It’s possible that I was not following the Pentecostal world as closely previously, but I don’t know of this concerted effort to use media, like [Christian multimedia company] Charisma and these online networks, to really aggressively promote the idea that Donald Trump had been anointed by God…
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…me of most important living Orthodox Christian theologians—appeared on the websites of two of the world’s leading centers for Orthodox Christianity, Volos Academy for Theological Studies and the Center for Orthodox Christian Studies at Fordham University.* The Moscow Patriarchate has essentially responded through the personal website of Alexander Shipkov, one of its media liaisons. In the statement, Shipkov rejects the declaration published on “a…
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…se of Osteen, for all his likability, positive message, good looks, and 15 bestselling books, perhaps the suspicion Americans harbor toward public religious figures since the televangelist scandals of the 1980s make him seem just questionable enough. Or, as Tribble put it, “I also think it’s telling that so many people believed the hoax. Do you think people would believe Billy Graham rejected Christianity? No, because he’s a man we all know to be…
Read More…se would be to simply ignore the Satanic Temple, Catholic and conservative websites have condemned the event, showering it with free publicity. Greaves’ critics demonstrate what Jason Bivins calls “the erotics of fear.” While claiming to be shocked by the black mass, it appears to excite them and potentially confirms their claims about extraordinary evil. Despite Greaves statement that he doesn’t believe in the supernatural and that the black mass…
Read More…ndustry earlier this month, I noted: ACT!, along with several conservative websites, has promoted the conspiracy theory that Obama has “quietly” appointed people with Brotherhood ties to top positions in his administration in order to orchestrate uprisings in the Muslim world. According to this theory, American leftists are in cahoots with the Brotherhood through a “consortium of left-wing organizations, Islamic groups, labor unions, and Obama-fri…
Read More…his week. You might not have known from the furious headlines on Christian websites proclaiming that the 1 million-member UCC will rebuff Christ and God by slashing a reference to God as “Heavenly Father.” Terry Mattingly at GetReligion.org headlined his piece, “Adios to God the Father?” Mattingly, founder of the media critique site, thumped mainstream media for failing to notice a news release from a critic of the proposed change. Without calling…
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…are consigned to underground clubs, cult films, and obscure-though-popular websites because the dominant social voice says looking at death is sick, morbid. After: Improvised Community I wonder if we can move beyond a voyeuristic reception, and rethink such images within the framework of an improvised religious ritual. Part of the accusation against “voyeurism” is that it is individual-based, typically defined as a single person looking at some…
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