Religion Dispatches
…and tempers taking turns providing spiritual support, and mainly over the phone. Because Goodstein’s piece was essentially unsourced, some caution is in order as to even believing that Obama accepts rotating support and counsel from Jim Wallis, Joel Hunter, Otis Moss Jr., Kirbyjon Caldwell, and T.D. Jakes. This crew struck me as a little too Dream Teamy in respect to the political and cultural stances and demographic constituencies of the disting…
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…f women’s leadership in mainline Christian denominations—and if our recent phone conversation is any indication, she has her work cut out for her. She must assume the bishop’s role of watcher or overseer; she must surpass her male colleagues in competence to show that a woman, in her case an Hispanic woman, can be a good bishop; and, she must find a way to live out her own unique commitments with integrity. As was said of the legendary Ginger Roge…
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…so that we spend a huge amount more money on science and medicine for the American citizenry. What do you think of religious subsidies—the approximately $80 billion a year that the American government spends on religious institutions through reduced income, property, and investment taxes? We would remove every single one of those deductions. Of course, I say that knowing that that would be an impossibility. But that would be the goal, to remove t…
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…indus. For an example of this, we can look at how one of the largest Hindu-American organizations, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA), reacted to the violence in Bangladesh and Tripura. The VHPA is aligned closely with the political ideology of Hindu nationalism, and has a proven track record of collaborating with Hindu extremist ideologues such as Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, who has publicly declared that “Islam should be eradicated fr…
Read More…r family, publishing their personal details online so that activists could phone and text-message “Agata” to dissuade her from her choice. They followed Agata to a second clinic when the family attempted the procedure there; charging in the media that the girl was being pressured into the abortion by Planned Parenthood and informing the police that Agata’s mother was “inciting her daughter to abortion,” leading to the illegal separation of the gir…
Read More…r thing to… do whatever Rep. Kelly thinks he’s doing. I give up. Here, have a video about Basenjis freaking out when a phone rings:…
Read More…n Paul II, Pope Benedict sent the following text message to Italian mobile phone users: “Let us go forth in the joy of the risen Lord and trusting in his permanent help.” JPII had been texting Italians with a “thought of the day” while he was still alive, so Benedict was simply carrying on this tradition. Pope Benedict has more recently used text messaging to communicate with attendees throughout this year’s World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia. H…
Read More…e a caucus proposed a stop fracking resolution. We spent hours on national phone calls debating when fracking should be stopped. We finally proposed 2030 as the last fracking date. It was a compromise after many “brackets,” what COP21 calls the matters that are kept in that famous parking lot where we put the things we don’t know how to decide. The Synod amended our so-called radical proposal and unanimously passed 2017 as the final date. We were…
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…ate any displeasure with the Israeli government’s gratuitous insult of the American vice president). Other conservative pro-Israel organizations, both Jewish and Christian, soon followed suit, ignoring (as they always have) the settlements provocation and blaming the American administration for the disagreement. The progressive pro-Israel group J Street was virtually alone in recognizing the crisis as generated by the Israeli government’s provocat…
Read More…Polish tinfoil hat so can wear it to Restoring Honor Rally 7. Find E.T. 8. Phone home Sarah Palin 1. Conference call with Smokey the Bear to map out guerrilla grizzly action plan 2. Primp for photo shoot with Today’s Christian Woman 3. Order camouflage Bible 4. Call Pat Robertson for spiritual guidance 5. Put hubbie on short leash 6. See if can find any prayer warriors willing to go all biblical on Levi 7. Send Rush a belated wedding gift Mel Gibs…
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