Religion Dispatches
…litical zone larger now than ever before. The Modern West’s allegedly life-promoting institutions, precisely because of their excessive materialism, actually foster death. This is not a superficial analysis or critique, and there is much in it that a progressive secularist could agree with. Feminism and sexual ethics frame the issues where the two sides necessarily part company. It is important to recall that Catholic anti-Modernism is not new; it…
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…out? A People’s History covers 2000 years in 350 pages. Maybe it would be better to ask me what I left in. What are some of the biggest misconceptions about your topic? Recently, my eleven-year-old daughter told one of her fifth grade Sunday school classmates that her mother had written a book on church history. He replied, “What’s that about? Killing Muslims and Jews?” That pretty well sums it up—most people think that Christian history is about…
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…eveloping charismatic and photogenic representatives of the lifestyle they promote. To this end, VF creates a beautiful glossy catalogue populated with high quality photographs of [the] Phillips children and friends in romantic historic costumes and settings: Jamestown, the Massachusetts Bay Colonies, and the Wild West. In these images, and generally in the literature and stories of Vision Forum, gender roles are greatly exaggerated and glamorized…
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…lmed by emails from educators around the country accusing him of trying to promote religion. Indeed, the version of the resolution that passed the Senate and was amended in the House said, “Evidence relating to global climatic change is complex and subject to varying scientific interpretations,“ and that “all instruction in the public schools relating to global climatic change be presented in a balanced and objective manner.” For anyone who follow…
Read More…and Donald Argue, members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, said that the language was “a cleverly coded way of granting religious leaders the right to criminalize speech and activities that they deem to insult religion.” Moon’s UN project? Still in the hopper! To gain a better appreciation for Moon’s powerful political, religious, and economic empire, check out John Gorenfeld’s Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created th…
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…ombings? The film doesn’t really make those connections, nor could it, because they don’t connect. The broader connections between belief and violence could have (and, I’d say, should have) been made, but it would have taken some much more careful consideration of the topic at hand. What Maher and filmmaking cohorts don’t appear to understand is that a person can be a Jew, have an enjoyable evening around the Sabbath table, and not believe that Go…
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…answer everything. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they are not actively promoting the use of “supplemental materials” like pro-intelligent design textbooks such as Pandas and People, used in Dover, and its follow-up, The Design of Life. Evangelicals may not realize it, but such an approach is a risky strategy. It’s not just bad science, it’s bad theology. Such dichotomy forces students to choose between faith and science. After Dover’s trial wa…
Read More…ngry man to his right, “Some day somebody should take the hide off Peg because the stuff inside is so much better than the varnished surface which blinks in the sunlight of public approval.” That’s not to say Peg was a sweetie underneath. He was an angry man through and through, born into hatred of Hearst inherited from his father, responsible for the “Hearst Style,” a populist tongue of blood and cliché, expressive of the sentiments of working pe…
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…y sacred book into perfectly familiar and battle-worn clichés? Is it for…amusement? Some church-goers do seem to relish a good fight. Quarreling entertains them. Some exchanges in church come to resemble amateur theatricals—or, more precisely, long-running soap operas. They keep running because they still attract viewers—and so sponsors. There’s the second motive: habit. Repeating fighting words about homosexuality in church has become in the last…
Read More…fusal to sign HB 4001, the bill forbidding gay domestic benefits. Palin refused only because she was advised that the bill was unconstitutional, though she did support its intent, and had earlier shown her anti-gay rights colors in her support of a 1998 ban on same-sex marriage, which she defended by saying: “I believe that honoring the family structure is that important” — an emphasis on structure that surely rings true to “pro family” advocates…
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