Religion Dispatches
…e Henry Ford argument that if everyone is paid enough to buy a car, I will sell more and my profits will go up. But does this hold generally? And more importantly, why should I care about the well-being of others if I can increase my own? This is precisely the debate we are having in America today. There are those, like myself, who think that even if the very rich do get a better quality of life than the rest of us—Mayor Bloomberg flying off in hi…
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…American population. The Republican primaries gave that small slice a megaphone: the artificial loudness of their voice makes people overestimate their number. That said, it will be interesting to see what happens now in the general election when you may begin to hear from another voice that is anxious not so much about Mormonism per se but about any candidate that is too religious. And if Mormonism is anything in the American mind, it is a group…
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…divine as any picture of Jesus in a frying pan. The obvious can be a tough sell, however. As The Real Face of Jesus proves, 3-D imaging is far more sexy than radiocarbon dating. To judge from the coverage of mainstream media and the response of much of the religious blogosphere, the Shroud documentary offered on basic cable this week has succeeded in blurring lines between Catholic and Protestant, and even belief and non-belief. No matter what Pau…
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…eventually lost all semblance of impartiality as journalists and wound up selling their stories of the trial to other media, advising the defense team, and generally hanging out at the headquarters of the defense; an old, quickly-refurbished house on the outskirts of Dayton. The house is owned by George Washington Rappleyea, a transplanted New Yorker, who emerges as the architect of the whole trial in large part an effort to revitalize Dayton’s e…
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…hadowing of much of the rhetoric used by the Bush-Cheney administration to sell the “War on Terror.” Of all the examples of right-wing pundits who write and speak about politics in a violent idiom, Dobson’s Dare To Discipline is perhaps the most startling because it uses violence to describe the non-violent behavior of preschool children. For Dobson, a child who misbehaves is not just naughty, but a “tyrant and dictator” whose behavior threatens n…
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…” According to Luke 22:36, Jesus said: “Let him who hath no sword, let him sell his tunic and buy one.” We feel most vulnerable when we have no means to defend ourselves from attacks. Organizations like the Pink Pistols offer a seemingly viable tool to stem gay violence. Of course guns will never be the great equalizer for an embattled group. They may for a fleeting moment deter our enemies, but they will never permanently protect us from them. Wh…
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…monials. Quite a few involve losses in excess of $10,000. Through his time selling Amway products, Scheibeler, who had developed a business that extended from North America to Europe, South America, and the Philippines, met a number of politically powerful Republican politicians and conservative religious leaders, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Iran/Contra figure Oliver North, and then-Senator Rick Santorum. Religious leaders…
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…jail for embezzlement. Well, today an Atlanta venture capitalist hopes to sell over 15,000 hours of PTL footage as he prepares to put over four-tractor trailer loads of film on the auction block. The footage has been reportedly appraised at $8 million. And while I am certain that reels of film displaying Jim’s snake-oil sales pitches and Tammy Faye’s mascara trail of tears may not be high on the budget agenda of many during these trying economic…
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…the culture wars between science and religion.’ I know: kindling and fires sell books—but let’s relax and go a bit deeper. In The New Republic, Jerry Coyne, a respected professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, reviews two books that attempt to reconcile science and religion: Karl Giberson’s Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution (HarperOne, 2009) and Kenneth Miller’s Only A Theory: Evolution and the B…
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…vanize American nonbelievers and turn atheist manifestos into national bestsellers. When President Obama acknowledged nonbelievers in his inaugural address, he recognized a group of people who had previously been invisible in American politics. Of course atheists remain a distrusted and despised minority, and it will take time for politicians to begin to acknowledge personal disbelief publicly, but for the first time, led by a group of articulate…
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