Religion Dispatches
…where Professor Rashid derives support for this contention is unclear. The official spokespersons for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community have never claimed to represent all American Muslims. For example, Naseem Mahdi, Vice President of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, has repeatedly stressed on various media outlets, including Fox news, that he does not purport to represent other American Muslim organizations, but that he desires to work in collaborati…
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…student group, which affirms marriage equality, is still not acknowledged officially by Biola.) Clearly, attitudes around LGBTQ inclusion are changing rapidly in the evangelical Christian community but they’re not following a linear path toward progress. Rather the change has been in a dynamic and almost chaotic way—two steps forward, three steps back, and one to the side— seemingly driven more by passionate emotions (especially fear) than reason…
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…on the Extraordinary Rite and Gregorian chant. However, the institute’s website two years later still says “full site coming soon,” with a video featuring stock music rather than chant, and its Facebook page has not been updated since 2014. Articles about the turmoil at the seminary repeatedly mention that Cordileone intends for a greater focus on Latin in priestly formation. But only two parishes in San Francisco continue to offer Latin Mass, lea…
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…American civil religion to the briefing, to which the Trump administration official shot it down as “ahistorical.” Another fail for the White House, even if Miller’s facts were right and even if Acosta’s accosting of him went beyond the standard protocol of a journalistic Q&A. Miller even oddly opted to utter the word “racist,” as part of a denial of the bill being that, succeeding only in sounding suspicious, like the motorist at the traffic stop…
Read More…from his predecessors, it is not a change in Church policy. The Vatican’s official Catechism still holds that homosexuality is “objectively disordered,” but that homosexuals must be received with “compassion and sensitivity.” This position, essentially stating, “Hate the sin but love the sinner,” is not new. Despite the Pope’s softening of tone, religious organizations have not budged on policy. Change in Latin America will ultimately come from s…
Read More…our new president guide us into the critical years ahead, but each elected official will play a key role in determining the welfare and moral direction of our country.” Prayer Suit: The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) (http://www.ffrf.org/), which describes itself as “an educational group working for the separation of state and church,” recently filed suit against President Bush over the federal law designating a National D…
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…; for instance, one of the monotheisms. The danger here is that government officials will be given the power and authority to determine how the tradition is to be understood and honored. As Winnifred Fallers Sullivan proposes in her 2007 book The Impossibility of Religious Freedom, such determinations will tend to favor official or “high” religion—practices linked to recognizable doctrine supported by canonical texts and clerical hierarchies—over…
Read More…is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference… I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the Nationa…
Read More…sors. On Thursday, McClatchyDC reported that Daniel Meyer, an intelligence official, has filed a formal complaint alleging that Schmitz made anti-Semitic remarks and targeted Jewish employees during his tenure as the Inspector General of the Department of Defense. Meyer’s complaint, which apparently draws on testimony from at least one other senior Pentagon official, describes Schmitz boasting that he had fired “the Jews” and lecturing a colleague…
Read More…ncludes the use of the personal name that gets attached by signature to an official state document. I think we need to be clear that these legal fiction persons are not identical to the real people bearing the same names. Simply, “Kim Davis, County Clerk” does not mean the same as “Kim Davis, herself, or as daughter, wife, mother, sister, and so on.” They may point to the same human body, but they don’t mean the same thing. Once Kim Davis, County…
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