Religion Dispatches
…f Reconciliation, the 93-year-old interfaith and international movement to promote peace and nonviolence. “What do you hope to accomplish?” they ask. Then the concerns of friends, critics, and loved ones diverge in intent. Critics, if they don’t immediately call me unpatriotic, point out my naiveté. Decrying any meeting with “those people” as futile, they insist that the Iranian government is oppressive, possesses nuclear weapons, and needs to be…
Read More…is for Democrats. George W. Bush pushed through his signature tax cuts and Iraq war authorization with substantial Democratic support, while unwavering Republican opposition nearly torpedoed Barack Obama’s health-reform legislation. When Democrats are in the majority, their greater ideological diversity combined with the unified opposition of Republicans induces the party to negotiate within its ranks, producing policies that not long ago would ha…
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…ther pain for people who have been picketed. That meant no pictures of WBC signs. The press suggested a play on the church’s own signs, using red, white, and blue, since the book also addresses the ways that the U.S. is crafted as a place of God’s special blessing by the religious right. It was so clearly perfect that I said yes right away. This is embarrassing to admit, but when I submitted the title—which the press accepted without hesitation—I…
Read More…publicly repudiate “the unconstitutional policies of President Bush in his promotion of the USA Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps and eavesdropping, and the deceptive manner in which he led America into an undeclared, unprovoked, and preemptive war against Iraq;” have protested against abortion, and have publicly resisted “‘Seeker-Friendly,’ and ‘Purpose-Driven,’ and ‘Emerging Church’ church growth movements.” He has, Baldwin told me, some 300 pas…
Read More…tes: Raised on the ad hoc communalism of the Internet, disenchanted by the Iraq War, reflexively tolerant of other lifestyles, appalled by government intrusion into their private affairs and increasingly convinced that the Obama economy is rigged against them, the millennials can no longer be regarded as faithful Democrats — and a recent poll confirmed that fully half of voters between ages 18 and 29 are unwedded to either party. Obama has profoun…
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…e very clearly that we are on the side of the people and to let that gesture manifest itself in concrete policy. Didn’t President Obama go to Cairo in 2009 for just this reason? The line that received the loudest applause wasn’t about Islam or Palestine or Iraq. It was about democracy. When President Obama struggled to determine from which city he should deliver his address to the world’s many Muslims, he chose Cairo. Here’s another chance for a n…
Read More…rs. Tim LaHaye and Gary Frazier. In Luke 21:25, we read that there will be signs all around us prior to the return of Christ. Stating that we must discern the signs of Jesus’ second coming, Dr. Hindson noted six modern developments indicating that the stage is being set for the return of Christ. They are: 1. Israel returned to the Promised Land (1948) 2. Increase of Islamic opposition 3. Extremists threatening the world 4. The political unificatio…
Read More…by the writings on the gunsights of weapons he used during deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. “There are many other soldiers who feel as I do. Many are Protestant and Catholic and they fear reprisal just as much as I do for trying to stand up to the Christian bullies in uniform who outrank us,” he said in a letter dated January 14 and addressed to [Mikey] Weinstein and his [Military Religous Freedom] foundation [MRFF]. Another pens a lengthy le…
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…d stimulated by the perception that US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq were wars against Islam. This jihadi vision of sacred warfare was propagated by the internet, through postings on chat rooms and the dissemination of YouTube types of videos showing graphic acts of US military destruction in Islamic countries and calling on the faithful to respond. The jihadi idea of cosmic war provided a strategic legimitization of violence by the imp…
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…f Eden. “Lo and behold,” she writes, “the Garden of Eden had been found in Iraq, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, and Ohio; at the North Pole; under the Mediterranean near Crete; in Sweden, the Persian Gulf, and Egypt.” What Paradise Lust makes clear is that the rhetorical power of words like “Eden” far transcends the actuality of any one place. Go to top Radical Reinvention: An Unlikely Return to the Catholic Church Kaya Oakes Counterpoint 2012 Radic…
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