Religion Dispatches
…personal preparations. Actually the whole thing has been paid in full, the ticket has been purchased with the itinerary sent to me and now I am waiting for the visa process. The thing is, I still have the entire month of October and one week in November before I get on my way. I’ve passed more than 50 days on this blog and have exhausted the best of what I have to say. I think I’ll take a break from the daily routine, and submit one or two a week…
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…choice, a result of overbearing mothers and distant fathers, and a one-way ticket to hell. “I won’t risk our family not being together in the next life,” she declares. “I’m healed!” The film hews to the conventions of Lifetime, in which tragedy inevitably leads to personal growth. There are archetypal characters: the jock brother who makes gay jokes, the sinister psychiatrist, the judgmental minister from the Griffith’s church, and the sympathetic…
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…Palin as his running mate, Engle ramped up his support for the Republican ticket, likening Palin to the biblical Queen Esther who saved her people from destruction. When he was in Washington, I asked Engle whether young evangelicals were looking for the kind of revival he was preaching about, in light of heightened interest in issues beyond abortion and gay marriage. “I don’t mean the old time Pentecostal [revival],” Engle replied, “but real retu…
Read More…gains. President Obama was elected just one short year ago on a prochoice ticket. If the electorate sees that a woman’s right to choose is not a core value but simply a bargaining chip to be laid on the table when the going gets tough, there will be a price to pay. We call on the Democratic leadership and all of our elected representatives to put forward healthcare reform that can be endorsed by the American people, not just the US bishops. The A…
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…onal Review as its publisher in 1957. By the mid-1950s, then, there were a number of conservative periodicals, publishing houses, and radio shows. And they weren’t just isolated outlets scattered across the country. They were intimately connected through overlapping donors, personnel, and relationships. Regnery was an early sponsor of the Manion Forum. Manion sat on the board of National Weekly, which oversaw National Review. Editors at Human Even…
Read More…Letter to Hollywood” from “Faith-Driven Consumer,” warning that 46 million ticket-buyers could be dissuaded from seeing the film, and pressure from the National Religious Broadcasters group. Then came the $26.5 million opening weekend of the Jesus movie Son of God, an adaptation of the History Channel series that the “Open Letter” praises. Now, Paramount seems ready to try again. Grace Hill Media is back on the case, releasing a series of behind-t…
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…things spicy in the bedroom, flirts with a police officer to get out of a ticket, and tells Corinne to trust her body, that it will tell her what she needs. The film is unexpectedly funny, and much of the humor happens when the two women are together. It is rare to see a film that presents friendship between women as a powerful source of laughter, resistance, knowledge, and love. So many of the films I see in theaters are written by men for men a…
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…n the reality of a depreciating house, evaporating 401K, and dwindling American job market. Unfortunately, regardless of the characters and costumes that the McCain/Palin ticket parade this week, these are the real stories of our lives that we must eventually confront. Trick or Treat!!…
Read More…all of the bishops were allegedly forced to tender their resignations, the numbers are plummeting. Ten years ago, 73% of Chileans called themselves Catholic. Today that percentage is 45 with reports that in Latin America as a whole numbers are down 20% in the same period. In Switzerland in November 2018, six prominent progressive Catholic women left the Church by filing the requisite papers that relieved them of contributing church taxes. Four are…
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…exercise clause into a broadly applicable special rights provision. A free ticket for the religious to exempt themselves from federal and state laws—most importantly, public health and anti-discrimination laws. JS: Do these special rights provisions apply equally? The court is on a mission to remake free-exercise law. Not too long ago, it held that religious people and organizations could not claim special exemptions to generally applicable law so…
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