Religion Dispatches
…thout bothering to understand the theological complexities of the religiously unaffiliated: that they are overwhelmingly believers, not atheists, much less anti-theists, that they feel pushed out of the church by exactly the judgmentalism that Francis works to counteract, that many of them have moved left exactly because they are so disgusted by the connection between religion and right-wing politics. Then there’s the slur that liberal Christianit…
Read More…an right bent on claiming its religious freedom is under siege, she is really a symbol of something else entirely. The Republican Party, and even its most reliable base of support, the Christian right, is being forced to move on when it comes to the marriage issue. According to a 2014 Pew survey, 58 percent of Republican millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) favor gay marriage. A Public Religion Research Institute survey conducted last ye…
Read More…, a war-ravaged family, a widow, or a single mother and her baby.” Apparently this bit of Catholic teaching hasn’t moved Chris Christie, who thinks even orphans should be refused refuge. Although Trump’s supporters are the most avid opponents of immigrants, Cruz’s high-profile endorsement from Rep. Steve King (R-IA) exemplifies the clash of civilizations mentality described in the PRRI report. (A desperate second might be Mike Huckabee, with his p…
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…of ‘making it’ in a hyper-capitalist society like the U.S. (and increasingly globally) is at odds with any sort of religious or spiritual life.” Kaya Oakes: The question remains how the distractions can be channeled into something spiritually productive. I’m a big fan of Twitter as a place to make connections with other people who are thinking about questions of religion, but it slides into harassment and trolling so easily that productive discus…
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…eir religious beliefs.” But by defending Davis, the candidates are not merely defending her “religious liberty;” they’re defending her underlying argument, that what she claims is God’s authority is superior to the Constitution, civil laws, and the Supreme Court’s rulings on those laws. Religious freedom, of course, has long been seen as the hot 2016 culture war issue, so it’s not surprising to see some of the candidates line up to support Davis….
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…s be honest—a coalition led by a charismatic male Christian pastor to be a bit old-school. Nevertheless, I can’t deny the importance of Rev. Barber’s coalitional work and consistent commitment to justice. I fear overly fragmented political or moral responses won’t dismantle a well-financed status quo. Coalitions are needed, but not the ahistorical kinds that promote erasure of particular struggles. Rev. Barber’s activism is grounded in a rich hist…
Read More…smaller churches, just “teaches your children to hate church,” and that only bigger churches offer the potential to connect with more believers: You care nothing about the next generation. All you care about is you and your five friends. You don’t care about your kids…anybody else’s kids…You drag your kids to a church they hate, and then they grow up and hate the local church. Yowza. Considering about half of churchgoers attend smaller churches (…
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…and engaging in premarital and homosexual sex. Bob Jones University actually prohibited interracial dating up until 2001. Oral Roberts believed that the survival of his own namesake university depended on its honor code, which mandated not just chasteness and academic honesty, but also that students “practice good health habits and regularly participate in wholesome physical activities.” ORU, like other evangelical universities, does not only enf…
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…es politicians effective also tends to make them less ethical and less likely to support the policies you want. A Buzzfeed post on Super Tuesday summed it up quite colorfully: Hillary Clinton – The presumptive favourite, the establishment choice, determined to avenge her 2008 defeat by Barack Obama. Eighty-nine per cent likely to be Illuminati. Bernie Sanders – The eccentric uncle in a film about a group of kids who have to put on a show to save t…
Read More…al child, which conservatives argued was a threat to the “traditional” family model. Italy’s interior minister, Angelino Alfano, had strongly opposed the clause and succeeded in stripping it from the bill ahead of Thursday’s vote. After the vote, Alfano said he was inspired by the words of St. John Paul II, who died in 2005. “When it’s not possible to prevent or repeal an (intrinsically unjust) law … one could rightly offer their support to propos…
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