Religion Dispatches
…en you start of your regular day something sits like some a canceled movie ticket in lump on the top of your stomach. You belch a lot and it reeks of what ever this lump was made of, all morning long if not all day. On the other hand, the third day is the day your body starts to accept that it is fasting, requiring less food. Anyone prone to headaches those first two days due to severe drops in blood sugar and dehydration will be over it now and s…
Read More…o see — they want to go see Allah, I’m all in favor of giving them a first class ticket if — if they don’t respect human life and dignity. What Jesus is getting at, Mr. Hannity, is that those who truly have respect for human life and dignity understand that it is better to love an enemy than it is to hate them and wish for (or facilitate) their destruction. Hannity is no better than the fanatics he condemns since has no respect for their lives or…
Read More…candidate. Reacting to a possible Cruz nomination, the 92 year-old Dole this week warned of “cataclysmic” losses for the GOP with the “extremist” Senator at the top of the ticket. But which of the other candidates could get realistically get the nomination? “I think it’s Trump,” said Dole. …
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…Baptist Convention and the Pentecostal Holiness Church), have been in the business of passing “racial reconciliation resolutions.” The Southern Baptists did so with a pretty strong statement in 1995; the Pentecostals experienced their “Memphis Miracle” in 1994 (perhaps the most ironic here, given the interracial origins of Pentecostalism in the early 20th century); and numerous other groups followed in the wake, mostly apologizing for slavery and…
Read More…ng social security nets, evangelicals will stubbornly support a Republican ticket that goes against their own economic self interest so as to not give an inch of civil rights to gays and lesbians. What these “value voters” disregard are the very real economic values of the Bible. It’s not “How much hay can I make for me while the sun shines?” but “How can we all enjoy God’s abundance?” that drives the biblical economic view. Deuteronomy 15: 7-11 m…
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…vel 3 sex offender won $10 million in the state lottery from a $20 scratch ticket. Convicted six times of indecent assault and battery (including two counts for a child under 14), he may pay a heavy fine for failing to notify his parole officer of relocation, but worry not: The money will be his. Finally, in South Carolina, a 10-year-old boy shot his 9-year-old sister when she failed to relinquish a bag of chips. Authorities say that when she refu…
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…nally. You cannot possibly ‘hate’ him,” she would insist. “Hate” was a big-ticket word not to be squandered on annoying siblings or corrupt politicians. My mother’s semantic ethics on this point have stayed with me throughout my life, so I’ve never been one to throw around words like “hate,” “hater,” or “hate speech” casually. Words are of course powerful things, filled with the potential for hurt and shame that can linger for years, poisoning sou…
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…Congressman Tom Tancredo is running for governor on the Constitution Party ticket, endorsed by conservative blogger and CNN contributor Erick Erickson. Tea party groups are learning about the “biblical basis” of the Constitution from the Constitution Party-related Institute on the Constitution. The younger Phillips travels the country, to conventions and conferences sponsored by Vision Forum and its Reconstructionist allies, and is a renowned spea…
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…event’s multimillion dollar annual budget is funded almost exclusively by ticket sales, and these tickets are not cheap (ranging this year, for example, from $210-$300 depending on time of purchase). This pays for the basic infrastructure as well as expenses like a hefty per-person/per-day use fee charged by the Bureau of Land Management. In addition, a significant portion of each year’s budget is set aside to fund many of the large-scale art ins…
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…s freedom while running roughshod over other people’s rights. It is tricky business in the increasingly lay-led Church to put too much emphasis on any one group, especially the nuns on whom some people mistakenly confer a quasi-clerical status (nuns are consecrated to religious life, but are not clergy). But in this instance, the bus adventure captured many imaginations and functioned to demonstrate how the free exercise of religion can achieve ma…
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