Religion Dispatches
…ion for the coming July 4th festivities, Rep. Doug Lamborn, who represents Colorado Springs and El Paso County in Colorado (full disclosure—my home) introduced a resolution to declare July 2nd as a “National Day of Personal Reflection and Repentance.” Heretofore, Lamborn has been best known for bringing military pork but little else to his district, expressing doubts about the man-made causes of climate change, making the list of the “seven most a…
Read More…ion, Bill Dallas of United in Purpose (a Christian Right strategic and capacity building organization), Buddy Pilgrim, a businessman who served as National Director for Faith & Religious Liberty for the 2016 presidential campaign of Ted Cruz, and of course David Barton. The Project Blitz report was published at the end of 2017 and is central to the Christian Right’s agenda in the states. Both a review of the political lessons of the past, and a pr…
Read More…s to Change Abortion-Drug Mandate.” In announcing its lawsuit on behalf of Colorado Christian University, Becket stated, “The Health and Human Services regulation mandates that all group health insurance plans must provide FDA-approved contraceptives at no charge to consumers, including the abortifacients Plan B (morning-after pill) and ella (week-after pill), and sterilization services. Many evangelical Christians do not share Catholics’ objectio…
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…ical understandings of the Bible that few of her subjects question its veracity. If high-profile evangelicals cheat on their spouses or engage in same-sex behavior, they either repent or lose standing in the movement. Evangelicals who express serious misgivings about the patriarchal family model typically move away from evangelicalism. Of course, the patriarchal family model that evangelicals prize is rooted not in the world of the Bible but in th…
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…ept with the notion that the spirit is using the body to have fun and get around in the world. And on top of that, the spirit has no gender! I also think the “emotional tone scale” is useful, but only if you use it really carefully because it can be really manipulative and dangerous. You write that you realized the tone scale was a great way to recruit people. I was temporarily assigned to the post of Director of Promotion. At the time, I didn’t h…
Read More…Couple’s Marriage; Church Objects Last week the Court of Grosseto ordered city registrars to register the marriage of a gay couple who were married in New York in 2012, saying there is no reference to gender in the city council registry of married couples. The president of the Italian Bishops Conference, Angelo Bagnasco, condemned the ruling, which he said was likely to “sweep away the fundamental pillars of the institution of marriage.” Ethiopia…
Read More…“follow Taiwan’s lead on same-sex marriage and live up to its Asia’s World City tag.” He notes that anti-gay religious activists, while not large in number, are relatively vocal: Choi Chi-sum, general secretary of the conservative Christian group, the Society For Truth And Light, for example, has been given an increasingly prominent stage to present his views following Taiwan’s legislative change. His opinions on same-sex marriage, sexual minority…
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…s thing. I’m working my fat ass out on this thing. It’s good work. Cleaner city, prettier city. If nobody’s gotten on a bike in this city, it’s a great feeling, I recommend it.” The bicycle advocacy organization Transportation Alternatives is eager to keep the respective convictions of both hipsters and Hasidim from turning into a confrontation that could harm the chances of bike lane initiatives elsewhere. TA executive director Paul Steely White…
Read More…or weeks, I’ve been stewing over how to express my disdain for Sex and the City 2. I mean, it’s obvious: this is a terrible movie. But as a feminist of faith, I have to say I’ve cringed a special cringe every time someone mistakes SATC 2’s brand of consumption and Islamexploitation for feminism. Which. It. Is. Not. But now, rather than dwell on the ugliness that is SATC 2, I think I’ve found a proper antidote in a beautiful New York Times article …
Read More…members.” Last week the conversation moved off Mormon blogs and onto local Utah news, where it was critiqued for the way it dismisses the wisdom of professional studies of human sexuality, promotes rape culture, and “set women back some 35 years.” Given that I think The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does participate in rape culture, I was heartened by the development: it means that objections to rhetoric like Callister’s might finall…
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