Religion Dispatches
…tals and so forth. So if one had to bring Boudway’s original analogy up to code, one would have to say this: Imagine you live in a country where the default way to buy food is buying it from your employer. You get a job, and your employer negotiates with companies who in turn have agreements with grocery stores and growers, shipping companies and meat processing plants, and so on. The end result of all this is that you get a card, which you presen…
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…not sure she has subverted older paradigms as much as made them shiny and new with her irresistible narrative style. Indeed, the film could be read as a fairly simplistic rendering of women as the source of evil; tales that were born among ancient Mediterranean patriarchies, but have had a long and troubled history in the United States as well. In my work, I have explored the connection between misogyny, American religion, and images of sexuality…
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…ighly doubt that the use of “Letters of Good Standing” and the adoption of new “Codes of Conduct” (why either term is capitalized in the report is a mystery to me) will have much impact. Under the white supremacist patriarchy that still shapes so much of the American experience—not least in the SBC and similar churches—predatory white men will always be able to find people willing to attest to their “good character.” I’m reminded of Supreme Court…
Read More…r of continued discrimination and oppression. Right-wing opponents likely knew that pushback on the categorization of LGBTQ sex as “unnatural” would fail, and anticipated that their silence would be interpreted as a gesture toward equity. They remain unmoored, however, from social ideals like religious, gender, and sexual equality, and economic justice. The kind of neoliberal capitalism Modi represents relies on the very differences it sows—it ree…
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…to make sure this predator was not around children. No one challenged the code of deference to those higher up and obedience to the rule of secrecy. Now we have “the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in Church history,” declares the National Catholic Reporter in an editorial. The New York Times, which broke the story of abuse at the deaf school in Wisconsin, quotes a priest in Berlin as saying the crisis is “the worst in 100 yea…
Read More…e subjugation of “barbarous nations” and the building of Christian empire. Newcomb is co-producer of a new documentary, The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code. Also distributed at the press conference were excerpts from A Cross of Thorns: The Enslavement of California Indians by the Spanish Missions, by Elias Castillo, which include Serra ordering whippings for Indians who fled the mission. The statement by Amah Mutsun Tribal Ban…
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…urn to the old paths.” He adds, “the Church needs to repent” and “begin to promote biblical manhood.” Of course, even the hardcore have to live in the marketplace of ideas. Jennifer Chancey has generated controversy with her views on women and voting. She told a newspaper during Matthew’s unsuccessful 2008 campaign for the Alabama Public Service Commission that she thought that while husbands and wives should talk about it, women should submit the…
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…of essays explores the links between religion, culture, and GMOs. In their new book, Acceptable Genes: Religious Traditions and Genetically Modified Foods, Conrad G. Brunk and Harold Coward have compiled a unique set of religious, cultural, and indigenous perspectives on genetically modified foods. Many of us are aware of at least some of the ways biotechnology has invaded the supermarket. But dietary practice often intersects with religious faith…
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…43 days away, but many people, including myself, have already voted. In a new poll, Americans agreed that the seat should not be filled until after the election, including half of all Republicans. By taking part in a dishonest Republican power grab, the would-be justice admits that they are partisan and corruptible, not impartial and principled. Without doubt the next justice will decide whether the Democratic or Republican parties win at the Sup…
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…te and advance a conversation. Clarkson has previously written that Moore knew his defiant actions—whether in placing a 2.6-ton Ten Commandments statue inside a state courthouse or instructing probate judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples—would ultimately be overruled. But his insistence that he was on sound moral—and therefore legal—ground did indeed spark nationwide conversations about the very issues at the center of Moore’s…
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