Religion Dispatches
…the Missouri Renewal Project, a spin-off of an idea Lane first hatched in Texas, when pastors organized for Governor Rick Perry’s reelection in 2006. They’ve been active in several states since that time; Lane told me in 2008 that their purpose was to “the mobilization of pastors and pews to restore America to her Judeo-Christian heritage.” The Bott Radio Network, one of the sponsors, posted a photo of pastors laying hands on Akin. Hamburger not…
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…es like bathrooms and locker rooms. And with high-profile politicians like Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick holding press conferences that perpetuate these lies to gin up fear, the people who will bear the brunt of this animus are those who are gender-nonconforming, feminine-presenting, and people of color. But you wouldn’t know any of that by looking at the panicked reports coming from the religious right or their “strange bedfellows,” Women’s Liberati…
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…days on the staff of the Home School Legal Defense Association; he heads a Texas-based organization called Vision Forum, which produces and markets books and other materials for conservative Christian homeschoolers. But to describe Vision Forum as ‘conservative’ does not tell the half of it. Phillips is a follower of Christian Reconstructionism, a movement whose seminal figure is Calvinist theologian R.J. Rushdoony, who died in 2001. Rushdoony’s v…
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…crazy.” This was apparently in response to a report that fellow candidate, Texas Governor Rick Perry, told a boy in New Hampshire that evolution is “a theory that’s out there. It’s got some gaps in it.” He continued to explain that “in Texas we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools. Because I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.” According to the Washington Post, Huntsman’s tweet was retweeted hundreds…
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…e lives of three people and wounding two others across the street from the Texas A&M campus, Notre Dame professor Naunihal Singh complained in The New Yorker about the media’s short attention span with regard to the Oak Creek tragedy as compared to the Aurora shootings less than three weeks earlier. We all seem to have moved on quickly. Thus, when I began typing “Oak Creek shooting…” into the Google search bar, the helpful algorithm offered me lis…
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…e doesn’t make the case. Miller links to recent in-depth articles from the Texas Observer, The New Yorker, and The Daily Beast, but doesn’t really engage substantively with any of their reporting. Instead, Miller gives a pro forma acknowledgment that the stories “raise real concerns” about candidates’ worldviews while portraying the articles broadly as evidence of unfair attacks on evangelicals from a hysterical anti-Christian “left.” She calls do…
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…d an unprecedented prayer rally of some 30,000 people in Houston to launch Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s 2012 campaign. Even the octogenarian C. Peter Wagner traveled from Colorado to attend. Another common mishap is to characterize various apostles and prophets as “self-appointed” or “self-anointed.” In fact, in the networks established by Wagner, there is a process of mutual recognition of apostolic and prophetic leadership, as people having been call…
Read More…ressive voters this midterm election, featuring white evangelical women in Texas who are supporting Beto O’Rourke, the Democrat challenging diehard Christian conservative Senator Ted Cruz. One woman interviewed described how donning a bumper sticker for a Democrat felt like “an act of rebellion.” As sociologists studying the messages presented at one of the largest and most trendy Christian women’s conference in the United States, the annual IF: G…
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This past weekend at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, marked the official public return of the Promise Keepers, their first in-person gathering since the 1990s. Founded by former University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney in 1990, Promise Keepers was intended “to bring about revival through a global movement that calls men back to courageous, bold, leadership. We will be the spark that calls men back to God’s Word, sharing their faith…
Read More…right leaders in protesting a new Planned Parenthood facility in Houston, Texas. At the protest Rodriguez said the “spirit of Herod” was present, a reference to the biblical king’s attempt to kill the baby Jesus. Rodriguez had deployed a similar charge against the health care reform bill pending in late 2009 in the Senate, which had, in the religious right’s view, failed to adequately restrict insurance carriers who provided abortion coverage in…
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