Religion Dispatches
…tion” uttered out loud any longer. What one does hear, however, amounts to code for the same thing. Thus, R.J. Rushdoony’s still-influential ideas about forging a godly nation—a nation organized according to biblical law—take it pretty much for granted that godly social organization has whites on top. Rushdoony, who lived into the current century, condemned interracial marriage as “unequal yoking.” Un-dead David Barton, another hugely influential…
Read More…nd there is a very big group of people who really understand the Koran far better than I do. I’m certainly not an expert, to put it mildly. But there’s something there that teaches some very negative vibe. I mean things are happening, when you look at people blowing up all over the streets that are in some of the countries over in the Middle East, just blowing up a super market with not even soldiers, just people, when 250 people die in a super ma…
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…the 30-year average. Gallup also reports some unsurprising relationships between creationist views and religious affiliation, education levels, and political views. Creationism is strongly correlated with church attendance (two-thirds of weekly churchgoers subscribe to the view). Creationism is negatively correlated with education level (it is endorsed by only 25% of postgraduates, but 52% of Americans with high school educations or less). Final…
Read More…s, with a seat on the House Intelligence Committee, Mrs. Bachmann you know better. Shame on you, Michele! You should stand on the floor of the House and apologize to Huma Abedin and to Secretary Clinton and to the millions of hardworking, loyal, Muslim Americans for your wild and unsubstantiated charges. As a devoted Christian, you need to ask forgiveness for this grievous lack of judgment and reckless behavior. (emphasis mine) House Speaker John…
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…” theologies, and boldly touts its commitment to tolerance. Moreover, its code of ethics includes: “We commit ourselves to respecting the diversity of ecumenical, theological, ideological and personal expressions of the various faiths and traditions found in our community.” Since the aforementioned is an ongoing case that most likely contains more details than those I’ve offered, I use it only as a backdrop to illustrate the ease in which orthodo…
Read More…e handed me a booklet called The Way to Happiness: A Common Sense Guide to Better Living. The rules in chapter one are indeed common sense: Get care when you are ill; Keep your body clean; Preserve your teeth; Eat properly; and Get Rest. Other rules caution against harmful drugs, excessive drinking, and sexual promiscuity. Two chapters are devoted to the Golden Rule, stated both positively and negatively (“Try not to do to things to others that yo…
Read More…the day in 1954 when the “Johnson amendment” language was put into the tax code was the day that “changed America” and set the stage for bad Supreme Court decisions and everything else that has gone wrong since the 1960s. Pulpit Freedom Sunday participants agree to preach political sermons, send them to the IRS, and dare the agency to sue them. The Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund) has offered legal help to c…
Read More…rbing the public peace according to regulation 201 A4 of the Israeli legal code. The punishment for this crime is six months in prison. They also broke regulation 287A by performing a religious act that ‘offends the feelings of others.’ The punishment for this crime is up to two years in prison.” After her arrest last week, Hoffman told the Forward’s Debra Nussbaum Cohen: “I was saying Sh’ma Israel and arrested for it. It’s just unbelievable,” she…
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…rends continue, perhaps we can look forward to the day when the word “values” is no longer used in political campaigns as a code word for bigotry….
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…fties also drive liberals insane by saying that there’s no real difference between Democrats and Republicans. In my view, this is a very sheltered, cozy, white, privileged thing to say—but if your scale of significance is not support for communities of color or fairness in the tax code, but rather alignment with cosmic forces of enlightenment, it makes some sense. Post-millennial lefties tend to be really scary, or really wacky, or both. In pop cu…
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