Religion Dispatches
…pen it and begin reading whenever we talked of any religion that was not Christianity. Once, during a film about Hinduism, I watched as he leaned close to his open Bible and began kissing it, beginning at the left-hand side of the page all the way to right-hand edge. Imagine my surprise when this same, Bible-snogging student gave a very fair and balanced presentation on Islam as his final project. (A teaching success story, if ever there was one!)…
Read More…ntenced to Prison for ‘Debauchery’ in Anti-Gay Crackdown Conor Sheils, an Irish writer living in Cairo, reports for Cairo Scene: Four men have been jailed for hosting gay sex parties as part of a brutal crackdown on homosexuality in Egypt. The men were stood accused of hosting so-called “deviant parties” and cross-dressing in women’s clothes. Three were sentenced to eight years and a fourth to three years behind bars on trumped up debuachery charg…
Read More
…support for greater equality for women in the church, or same-sex civil marriage rights. “I’m really a nobody,” wrote one woman. “Just a stay at home mom who doesn’t particularly go out of her way to take up too much space on the internet.” Whether or not these formal and informal disciplinary actions have been ordered by Church headquarters in Salt Lake City has been the subject of speculation; Church officials deny high-level coordination. But i…
Read More…nius. The website for his current group presents a confusing mix of Zoroastrian, Gnostic, and Hindu ideas riddled with typos, spelling errors, and references to “Karl Jung.” Past attempts to organize events have been stymied by a falling out with his fellow Satanists. Daniels is also a registered sex offender, having had an inappropriate relationship with a female prisoner while working as a guard at an Oklahoma prison. When asked if there had bee…
Read More
…er and grandmother would have prayed.” What’s evident is that Foley prays primarily for the benefit of others rather than for himself, a much overlooked aspect of both personal and corporate prayer. When he speaks to his mother by phone from Libya, she asks if he has felt the prayers coming from his home as well. He tells her that he has felt them and reports, “Maybe it was others’ prayers strengthening me, keeping me afloat.” This is precisely th…
Read More
…th: Associate professor of religion at Butler University. He blogs at Exploring Our Matrix; *Thomas Bertonneau: Received his Ph.D in comparative literature from UCLA and co-author of The Truth is Out There: Christian Faith and the Classics of TV Science Fiction; *Joseph Laycock: RD contributor and a doctoral candidate studying religion and society at Boston University. He is the author of Vampires Today: The Truth About Modern Vampires. And now,…
Read More…tanic monument at the Oklahoma capital (apparently a statue of a Native American warrior placed on top of the dome in 2002 is actually an idol of Baal erected by Freemasons). A letter writer expressed that the Satanic statue should be allowed because it would force the Illuminati to reveal their Luciferian plans to the world. But most callers essentially argued that the Ten Commandments should be allowed and the Satan monument forbidden because th…
Read More
…ong gone unanswered about how the state should define “religion.” By what criteria should we decide whether deviant beliefs and actions are an expression of religion or evidence of a medical problem? Dr. Kolchak points out that Dobson was not a lone psychotic and that his victims shared his beliefs. The three apparently met through the online organization “Joy of Satan,” and Kolchak argues that murders resembled rituals described on the website. A…
Read More
…ple are supplying the data but they go along with the lie. But I was also writing it for a number of people having these doubts who needed some data. What I’m saying isn’t brand new, but it’s saying, “Come on folks, let’s be honest about this.” You lead the moral vision of the book with a challenge to protect the environment. Was that intentional? I think that it opens people to the things that disturb them theologically. There is a growing sense…
Read More…asters, Cristian Avila, is a young LDS immigration activist from Phoenix, Arizona. As Cristian grew too weak to continue his fast in public, Sam Adair, a self-described “active” Mormon, father of three and immigration attorney from Austin, Texas, traveled to stand on the mall. RD: How did you come to be fasting for immigration reform on the national mall in Washington, D.C.? SA: My concern about immigration reform started when was 14 or 15 years…
Read More