Religion Dispatches
…ation but to make a “Passover offering.” Seven is a biblically significant number, the number of completion and perfection, and in this spring of 2007 the Praise-a-thon began on Easter Sunday, the seventh day of Passover. If you make the Passover offering, Munsey claims, God will give you seven blessings: God will dispatch an angel to lead miracles; rid you of your enemies; bless you with prosperity; heal you; give you longevity; give you an inher…
Read More…law review that said some disturbing things. She assisted a professor who once spoke at a convention that included some alarming people. Granted some of the coverage generalizes inappropriately, and much of it shows a lack of real understanding about the teachings of Reconstructionists, theonomists or (the new catchphrase) “dominionists.” But Perry has done much more than “once allowing himself to be prayed for,” and Bachmann didn’t just “once” at…
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…? And why did Bishop Bransfield publicly downplay the relevance of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’ for West Virginia, citing in his comments the importance of coal to the state’s economy? When asked these questions, diocesan officials such as Fr. Brian O’Donnell, the executive secretary of the West Virginia Catholic Conference (the public policy arm of the Diocese) reply that “it wouldn’t be prudent” to speak strongly about these things. In a…
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…rants. But the economy and politics are barely mentioned during the conference. Not once are religious right buzzwords or hot-button issues like abortion or homosexuality brought up; instead, the focus is on being down “on your face,” seeking repentance for yourself and direction from God for the spiritual battle. Yet the political motivation of these women is clear. Tunie Lang, WWW’s US director, who wears an American flag as a scarf, preached ab…
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…. On the other hand, a significant number of failures of nonviolent resistence may lead to a violent backlash once again. Not all protests will end like Tunisia and Egypt. Others will be ruthlessly crushed, as was the Green Revolution in Iran in 2009. The current protests in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Libya face an uncertain end. Failure of nonviolent revolution has, in the past, been the occasion for renewed acts of violence. So the jihadi warrio…
Read More…to Corvino on the phone Tuesday, he seemed to be wrestling with the same concerns, noting that the school’s sudden cancellation of his event sent the message that the presence of openly gay folks was like “a virus that might infect the students if they’re not protected.” Corvino reflected this same concern in a blog post Wednesday, It’s difficult not to feel as if the Providence College administration regards me as a sort of virus, which might inf…
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…form of the faith that features the blowing of shofars and the “Davidic dance”—using very distinctive, recently minted, theological terms. There was a common origin. For practical purposes, Colorado Springs was the Dearborn, Michigan of the next Christianity. A New Reformation? This development has not gone wholly unnoticed. Here’s how an Atlantic Monthly editor portentously introduced historian Philip Jenkins’ October 2002 article, “The Next Chr…
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…ggressor in the current conflicts and reported atrocities, and seem to be unconcerned that anyone will care enough to hold them to account. You have requested the “urgent intervention of the international community to stop the killings and restore peace in the region.” What kinds of interventions—and by whom—do you think would be most helpful? And what do you think will happen if those interventions do not occur? President Omar al-Bashir and other…
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…llent question—a question that reveals the full tangle of ambiguities and inconsistencies that surround the topic of Jewish identity. First, some background: when the researchers at Pew set out to conduct this survey, they quickly ran into a problem that’s been under discussion for at least two thousand years. As Gregory Smith, the Director of U.S. Religion Surveys at Pew, explained to me, “One of the key questions that we had to answer from a tec…
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…he scene who have committed violent acts in the past or are known for violence-inciting speech. The number of crimes committed by Reichsbürger has risen over the last couple of years, reaching 1,011 in 2021, including 184 violent crimes, and 500 currently own weapons legally. In 2016, a “Reichsbürger” shot and killed a police officer. During a protest against Covid-19 restrictions in 2020, several people managed to enter the Reichstag building of…
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