Religion Dispatches
…n felt compelled to share many of the insights I’ve gained with friends in China. When I began to read Religion Dispatches it occurred to me that the best way to do this would be to introduce RD’s in-depth articles to Chinese readers by translating a few, with the hope that more people will be encouraged and enlightened by them. Perhaps it will spark a desire, among those in both the East and the West, to share stories and engage in meaningful dia…
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…Kathryn Lofton The president’s faith, according to John McCain, is “[the] number one issue.” Having scoured the public record, the author reports back with a startling proposal: John McCain may not believe in God. Obama’s Divisive Choice of Rick Warren Michelle Goldberg In his zeal to appeal to all, the president elect chose a pastor to give the invocation at his inauguration who has compared gays to pedophiles and abortion to the Holocaust. Why…
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…r scream Look over there! Look at the gays, the abortionists, the ungodly, China, the liberal media, magic handkerchiefs, my eccentric visions—anything but that! What this crisis cries out for is a radical reevaluation and transformation of business as usual both on an individual and social level. It demands that Christians revisit the values that inspired biblical ideas like Shemittah, Jubilee, looking out for the vulnerable, and taking care of t…
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…ountries with bad track records on human rights—the usual suspects include China (Tibet), Russia (LGBT), Saudi Arabia (women), etc—but why does a resolution from the American Studies Association not address the American sources and causes of the problems faced by Palestinians? Noam Chomsky made this point in an earlier interview about the broader boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement (BDS): why stop with Israel? Why not boycott U.S. institut…
Read More…s the report he sponsored concluded that an EMP threat from “rogue states, China, Russia, and other nations” could have such a catastrophic effect that the “U.S. would cease to exist as a military superpower and as a modern society.” How nutty is Bartlett? Well, just as nutty as Gingrich and other Republicans. As Matt Duss reported in 2009, Gingrich warned the American Israel Public Affairs Committee of his perceived threat of an EMP based on a fi…
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…eopolitical paradigm that has sought to uphold India as a counterweight to China. (This summer, Modi was given just as warm a welcome by President Biden, whose Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo went out of her way to praise as “unbelievable, visionary.”) But, while Modi represents the high-water mark of Hindu supremacist power in India, the political convergence between the two movements—epitomized by Ramaswamy, but extending well beyond him—sig…
Read More…in 1929, while Teilhard was on one of his first scientific expeditions in China. He writes: Do the yellows—[the Chinese]—have the same human value as the whites? [Fr.] Licent and many missionaries say that their present inferiority is due to their long history of Paganism. I’m afraid that this is only a ‘declaration of pastors.’ Instead, the cause seems to be the natural racial foundation…Christian love overcomes all inequalities, but it does not…
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…ites every page. From the prologue to the report: “At the very moment when China and some European nations are seeking to replicate our model of broad education in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences—as a stimulus to innovation and a source of social cohesion—we are instead narrowing our focus and abandoning our sense of what education has been and should continue to be—our sense of what makes America great.” It goes on from ther…
Read More…ation or normalizing diplomatic relations with the communist government of China.” Carter then smiled and said, “Those critical letters…ended with the 1980 election which brought my involuntary retirement from the White House. After that I didn’t get very many letters from Liberty.” In the end, Carter came to this bastion of the Christian Right because he is a grace-filled Christian. In a Liberty press release, Falwell Jr. explained why he invited…
Read More…onal Geographic Channel has an upcoming documentary on child preachers. In China, a Tibetan monk immolated himself in protest. He was heard calling out for Tibetan independence and the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet. He was the second monk to self-immolate in protest in the past five months. The event spurred a lockdown of the monastery where the monk’s body was taken. The Daily Beast reports that the FLDS is secretly building a 38-foot-tall st…
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