Religion Dispatches
…eal of trust exists between us. Just as we do not plagiarize, we honor the code of privacy and do not make public that which was meant to remain private. For me, that trust was broken in the midst of this passionate debate in a way that tells me we have crossed a line. Writing a Facebook wall comment in response to a May 3rd debate between Gordis and Peter Beinart at Columbia University, I referred to Rabbi Gordis as a “tribal fascist.” The tribal…
Read More…from Wikipedia). New Testament scholars have noted that since The DaVinci Code became a cultural phenomenon, there’s been a surge of conspiratorial claims about Jesus, the early church, and the influence of Pagan mystery religions. Authors such as Craig Evans and Bart Ehrman have written with bewilderment at the revival of “mythicist” theories of Jesus and “nineteenth-century philosophical hokum” that was long ago dismissed by serious scholars wh…
Read More
…es. And for anyone who thinks that it’s a big breakthrough for the pope to promote “responsible parenthood,” here’s Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae: Married love, therefore, requires of husband and wife the full awareness of their obligations in the matter of responsible parenthood, which today, rightly enough, is much insisted upon, but which at the same time should be rightly understood. Thus, we do well to consider responsible parenthood in the l…
Read More
…o way that can be achieved without “entitlement reform,” which is Peterson code for cutting Social Security. Here lies madness. Here lies spare change you can’t believe in. Here lies a failure of nerve of colossal proportions. The New York Times reported the Obama deficit-reduction plan on the same Sunday front page where it also reported how Japanese consumers remain so traumatized by the devastation of their 1990s “lost decade” that they still r…
Read More
…e. I have not been able to find reference to them in the criminal or civil code of Illinois, where the movie is set. I did learn that many EMTs in Chicago are employed by private companies, in which case such an employee would not be violating the establishment clause by proselytizing.) This is the movie’s big theological problem: a firm certainty that if it seems Christian to you, it probably is Christian, and is therefore a good thing in exactly…
Read More
…ther as “friend.” No ego and no anger. My loud assertions violated a basic code of the center: rather than transcending my base self, I was wallowing in it. From what I could see, Osho’s clientele were well-heeled seekers from across the globe. During the weekend, there were (mostly young) men and women from France, Italy, Germany, Russian, Israel, the U.S., Japan, Argentina and India. Some, like us, were there for a short stay, but others came to…
Read More…ination, has only a thin and ambiguous record on cases involving religious freedom—will come out. And only time will reveal whether the rhetoric of religious freedom will remain a rallying cry on the right, or become one on the left. Already reports are suggesting that some moderate evangelical groups are preparing to follow in the footsteps of the Mormon church by supporting LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws in return for rigorous religious freedom pr…
Read More
…an political class is ashamed of it.” Tanzania: Government cracks down on ‘promoting gayism’ At BuzzFeed, Edith Honan reviews the country’s crackdown on LGBT people and any groups deemed to be “promoting gayism” and the consequent threat to public health. Gay sex has been a crime in Tanzania, punishable with life in prison, since British colonial rule, but there is no record of anyone serving serious time for it. LGBT Tanzanians have always been a…
Read More…and Donald Argue, members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, said that the language was “a cleverly coded way of granting religious leaders the right to criminalize speech and activities that they deem to insult religion.” Moon’s UN project? Still in the hopper! To gain a better appreciation for Moon’s powerful political, religious, and economic empire, check out John Gorenfeld’s Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created th…
Read More…al healing practices appear to be protected under one part of the criminal code but not under another) violates their right to due process of law. Wisconsin’s “treatment through prayer” provision is not unique: More than thirty other states offer similar kinds of apparent legal protections for devout parents who reject medicine and turn to prayer when their children are ailing. A number of groups have lobbied for the repeal of such religious exemp…
Read More