Religion Dispatches
Last week we watched death on our smartphones. We witnessed the light drain out of Philando Castile’s eyes and we knew that the stillness of Alton Sterling’s body after the bullets were fired was that of death. We watched. On smartphones and tablets and laptops and televisions, we watched real people die. As Luvvie Ajayi has written, these images and videos “desensitize us to black death” and numb us to the violence done against black bodies—a po…
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…ca are (and, moreover, in the wake of Obama’s election, who will get their phone calls returned from the White House) certain names keep cropping up. Pastor Rick Warren, who sees no daylight between his views and James Dobson’s, but who, according to Sullivan’s book, former-DNC-chair Terry McAuliffe blasphemously didn’t know; Jim Wallis, best-selling author and activist who lambasts the religious right for its petty intolerance and the left for “n…
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…Democrats’ ability to address racial differences while avoiding white backlash in the very districts they need to pick up. Like him, I’m convinced that they need more than just better messaging if they’re going to take rural seats. “Awakening the nation’s moral conscience” really isn’t going to work as a frame. Neither is asking WWJD or appealing to shared religious values. There simply is no trans-partisan set of values that will magically unloc…
Read More…e 1000 members already. Together, we are organizing joint calling days the last Tuesday of each month to bring together Catholics, evangelicals, and Mormons for marriage equality. Sara Long: We are also organizing Mormon delegations to march in Pride parades in Seattle and Portland. SH: And we’ll be ready to counter misinformation about marriage equality and religious freedom. Our Washington law [SB 6239] already states that no religion shall be f…
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…for shying away from hot-button religious culture war battles, “visited by phone” with Rowan County, Kentucky court clerk Kim Davis yesterday, according to a statement issued by his campaign. “I let her know how proud I am of her for not abandoning her religious convictions and standing strong for religious liberty,” the former pastor, Arkansas governor, and now two-time presidential candidate said in a statement. Arguing that “the Supreme Court c…
Read More…ear in agreement with what we are doing. I may ask for your church’s name, phone number, and Web site to verify your stand. What I see as the sin at the heart of Grizzard and Jones’ actions—as well as at the heart of anyone who seeks to violently control the free will or belief of others—is lust. These men lust for control; and in their lust they objectify others, people they call “heretics” or “sinners.” Lust, in and of itself, is not a bad thing…
Read More…be canvassing the state, in preparation for “a full-scale get-out-the-vote phone bank operation to make sure every last pro-freedom and pro-family voter goes to vote on behalf of our values.” So far, the right’s anti-union battleground in Wisconsin hasn’t been explicitly framed as a “pro-family” issue, but here’s Marx: Please join Tony Nasvik and join the fight with 100 plus FFC activists who will be going door-to-door encouraging the Badger State…
Read More…at cross purposes. My first thought was to kick myself for leaving my cell phone behind. This would have made a terrific picture. My second thought was to find a less obtrusive spot where I could watch to see how this excruciatingly slow drama would play out. But before I could move, my husband drifted up behind me in his kayak, took one look at the frog and snake and muttered, “I can’t take this.” Over my objections (“But it’s nature!”) Jeff stre…
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…y. We assume someone’s listening. We live ready for conversation. If you blast out a message—whether it’s a DVD, a tweet, or a smoke signal—and you think that’s the end of it, you haven’t been paying attention for the past several years to how communication works these days. So, perhaps the Pope is right: you ought to be listening more. Likewise, it would take fairly rigorous monastic seclusion to have missed the memo on transparency as a virtue…
Read More…s right in front of us, difference is on our iPads, in our laptops, in our phones. We hold a whole world of difference every time we open a phone. And the response to in the world around is at best insult, and so often violence, a reality which is the living experience of many you here. Welby also addressed a January gathering of Primates, which voted to suspend the Episcopal Church from questions on doctrine or policy for three years because of i…
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