Religion Dispatches
…roclamations are not only irritating, they’re a disturbing index of our level of discourse about religion. Surrounding the Easter/Ishtar conspiracy theory is a toxic brew of anti-intellectualism, heresiological claims masquerading as historical ones, and simple sadism and incivility facilitated by new media. Last year, a blog called Bell Jar wrote a nice piece qualifying and largely debunking the claim that Easter is a Pagan holiday. It is true th…
Read More
…he Remnant, editor Michael Matt praises Polish President Andrzej Duda for telling a television reporter that the country will not give in to pressure from other European countries to change its constitutional definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The Remnant adds a comment decrying the “Christophobic fascists running the European Union.” Seventh-day Adventists Church: Transgender identity unbiblical The Executive Committee o…
Read More
…gencies forcing their values on the pure, unsuspecting Catholics of the developing world by imparting a “lack of openness to life,” which is code for abortion and contraception. In case this sounds familiar, it was a favorite theme of Pope John Paul II, who blasted efforts to expand access to family planning for women in the developing world as “contraceptive imperialism.” During the run-up to the historic 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and D…
Read More
…and a little bit shocked. You’ve seen the iceberg ads, right? Peterson’s well-heeled foundation has been running these full-pagers everywhere, at God knows what cost, to scare the bejeezus out of us and make us think that unless we slash Social Security and Medicare now, our children and grandchildren will be reduced to foraging nuts and berries in a deficit-cratered landscape. As far as I can tell, Obama is accommodating the scaremongers today m…
Read More…square with Christian faith. You talked loud about giving more funding to religious (code-word Christian) organizations performing social services and backed it up with little real money. (David Kuo opened my eyes to this.) This is just one example of the way you wooed Christians with good rhetoric and failed to fulfill your promises. Using religious faith as a political tool is what history’s villians have done, and I am afraid you may be closer…
Read More
…with UCC churches that have been the targets of extremism. It’s been extremely helpful. I knew right away to take this very seriously. I knew right away to document every message that came in. I knew right away to contact both our local law enforcement as well as federal law enforcement in the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. I’ve learned a lot from this experience, and our work to help prepare other congregations will be much stronger…
Read More
…nservative Christian legal groups backing county clerks and others citing religious beliefs as a reason to refuse to recognize the ruling. Fifty couples are reportedly prepared to get married in a mass wedding in Acapulco,Mexico on Friday. Archbishop Carlos Garfias Merlos has made it clear that the weddings will not have the blessing of the Church, but a local activist organizing the event said the wedding is a civil act that would not be affected…
Read More
…re known to have troubling tropes, which is to say: all of them.) “Do You Believe” offers itself pretty frankly as a Christian version of 2004’s “Crash.” Here, though, the car accident brings together a dozen Chicago souls in need of Jesus: an older couple (Cybill Shepherd and Lee Majors) who have lost a child, a mom (Mira Sorvino) and a daughter without a home, a veteran with PTSD, an EMT being persecuted for his faith, and more. The plot is hamf…
Read More…fore and after his election, the ban violates the Establishment Clause by deliberately disadvantaging Muslims attempting to enter the U.S. After many twists and turns, the Supreme Court narrowly affirmed Trump’s ban, 5-4. It held that the final version of the proclamation is a valid exercise of presidential prerogatives in the immigration context. But Chief Justice Roberts’s majority opinion politely tweaked the president’s tail, and Justice Kenne…
Read More…in Public Life, Sojourners, and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good Release Post-Election Poll On Friday, November 14, a new post-election poll—“Religion in the 2008 Election,”—provided an in-depth look at the shift in priorities and moral agenda for Catholics, evangelicals, and religious voters overall in the 2008 election. Conducted by Public Religion Research, the poll was co-sponsored by the groups Faith in Public Life, Sojourners, and C…
Read More