Religion Dispatches
…at refused to expand Medicaid or adopt exchanges represent the Old Confederacy and the Wild West. We might breathe a momentary sigh of relief that the destruction of Obamacare is temporarily halted. But we had better brace ourselves for the next attack on the social contract. In fact, the very idea of any kind of social contract is anathema to these good Christian people. Remember their Holy Trinity….
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…d, the Hartford Courant / Religion News Service reports that the “God gap” between religious and non-religious voters has shrunk this election year. In fact, it’s smaller than the gender gap for the first time since 1960. That means, voters are more likely to split according to their gender (women strongly prefer Obama) than they are according to whether they attend church. Or could it be as well that the late twentieth century LDS effort to pus…
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…Bush; Barack Obama himself ran an ad during the Super Bowl. So maybe it’s religion. Maybe religion should be left out of the Super Bowl. Maybe, and yet even here, there’s encroachment. Think of the players all staging group prayers before and after games, or all the coaches and players thanking their Lord and Savior before they thank their fans. Some cultural observers, like RD’s own Gary Laderman, have pointed out how very religious the ritual an…
Read More…Bishops (USCCB) sees initial opportunities in preserving the principle of religious freedom after President Obama’s announcement today. But the Conference continues to express concerns. “While there may be an openness to respond to some of our concerns, we reserve judgment on the details until we have them,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of USCCB. “The past three weeks have witnessed a remarkable unity of Americans from all reli…
Read More…her’s Free Speech or Free Exercise rights, nor did it violate the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The photographers sought review from the United States Supreme Court on one issue: whether the state human rights law violated their free speech rights. They did not seek review on the other questions. The New Mexico Supreme Court is the court of last resort on the question of applicability of the state’s RFRA. Under the case that led to th…
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…hat the Federal Reserve is unbiblical because it usurps power not legitimately held by civil government (because God didn’t grant it) and it promotes inflation, which he says is nothing more than theft from those who are not in debt in favor of those who are. Many of North’s works are popularly accessible and have made their way into fundamentalist church Bible studies, as well as homeschool and Christian school curriculum. He lectures on these is…
Read More…ll be much broader, and will include lobbying efforts to defeat expansive religious freedom acts in the states, and litigating cases arising out of claims that religious freedom protects the rights, for example, of business owners who refuse wedding services to same-sex couples, or of religious institutions that refuse reproductive health care or insurance coverage to women. The Rev. Barry Lynn, AU’s executive director and an ordained United Churc…
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…t public money to churches has long been considered necessary to protect the individual right of conscience of the citizenry. Far from being discriminatory, separation of church and state is intended to ensure that individuals may choose to adhere to any or no religious beliefs free from coercion, and that the church itself is protected from government intrusion. The majority opinion ignores the long history of and important justifications for pro…
Read More…of one member of Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission it deemed hostile to religion: Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the holocaust, whether it be—I mean, we—we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination. And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use…
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…ty over the past century. Corporate poet David Whyte can make a living traveling between offices to recite his verses, and workplace chaplains and life coaches can continue the tradition of centering life at work instead of at home. These may sound like anecdotal examples, but they draw sharp comparison to the traveling tent revivals of Charles Finney and Billy Sunday, and life coaches often base their corporate roles on the examples set by milita…
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