Religion Dispatches
…taste test to find best chalk 5. Buy extra-strength Depends 6. Polish tinfoil hat so can wear it to Restoring Honor Rally 7. Find E.T. 8. Phone home Sarah Palin 1. Conference call with Smokey the Bear to map out guerrilla grizzly action plan 2. Primp for photo shoot with Today’s Christian Woman 3. Order camouflage Bible 4. Call Pat Robertson for spiritual guidance 5. Put hubbie on short leash 6. See if can find any prayer warriors willing to go al…
Read More…ready used the speech in a fundraising appeal. But the Clinton speech also illustrates a slippery dilemma that feels widespread here in the age of the attention economy: when your opponents seem to exist for attention, how do you take a public moral stand against them? For a long time, fringe groups have followed the principle that there is no such thing as bad publicity. What has been striking about the alt-right, though, is the degree to which i…
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…ss reports that a person can now change their legal gender in Norway as easily as filling a tax return. Iraq: Social media used to entrap gay men The Washington Blade interviewed Iraqi activist Ayaz Hassan, who says anti-gay militants are using social networks to identify gay men and kill them. Afghanistan: Activist charges security officials with waging extermination campaign Activist Nemat Sadat writes at Huffington Post that sources tell him Af…
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…ian polling outfit, recently agreed with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (an SPLC-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group), on the solution to America’s “spiritual deficiency”: rather than discuss politics overtly, churches should simply better instruct their congregants in “the biblical worldview,” which will naturally lead to orthodox social conservative politics. Thus, according to Barna, evangelicals have a responsibility to ma…
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…leading the armies of God in an existential battle against the forces of evil: Sheets will even say: If we only had pastors, the church would never kill anybody—because it’s all about battle. So generals are able to see the entire scope of things and command people and kill. And Sheets would also say: Well, no one would ever die. There would be no martyrs if it was all pastors. This is their critique of pastor-led churches—they are not militant en…
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…strict religion and coming out to religious family and friends. Heather: While my family and I still maintain very positive relationships, my leaving the religion has certainly taken a toll on our interactions. I feel that it has been difficult to find alternative ways to meaningfully connect with my family members now that religion has been taken out of the equation. It often feels that we are speaking different languages and we haven’t found a w…
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…the scattered remnants of a once-great invasion fleet, but they lack the ability to rebuild their forces. They have a “progenitor”—basically a Dalek factory—but it won’t recognize them as Daleks. They require the Doctor’s statement of their identity to rebuild their fleet. In a sense, the Doctor’s insistence on a sharp moral dichotomy between himself and the Daleks, his absolute statement that he is good and they are evil, is the cause of their ev…
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…LGBT people. Munson sent word out across the Mormon grapevine, through email, phone, and Facebook, inviting fellow churchgoing and believing Mormons to join her at the Pride Parade in Sunday dress. And Mormons responded by the hundreds, arriving at the parade route yesterday morning in their church clothes—dress shirts and ties for men, dresses for women. Some carried scriptures in hand. Others pushed their children in strollers, or carried them…
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…using a baby carrier instead of a stroller. So I held her six-month-old while she pillaged through a sea of clothing. That’s a lot of holding, trust me. When we finally returned to her place, I was hungry, but I just could not take another moment of being so family-oriented. I decided I would rather brace the rush-hour traffic and eat at home than to stay one minute longer. So of course when she asked if I would hold the baby for ten minutes whil…
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…ack” formation that maneuvered through the crowd and into the government building, while wearing combat gear, helmets, fatigues, body armor, and carrying weapons. They communicated via radio during the attack and coordinated online before the attack. The Oath Keepers’ is the largest conspiracy case because of the amount of planning for the Capitol attack that’s been discovered. So far, four of the Oath Keepers charged have pleaded guilty. Jon Scha…
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