Religion Dispatches
…it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, the idea, hang on, am I advising people to leave their church… yes!… If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish.” And the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good responded. Beck needs to get out more. I don’t know about the Book of Mormon, but here are just a few of the Bible verses concerning the poor and believer’s…
Read More…oing to voters on November 8 has a good chance of passing and it should be coded as ED, E for embarrassing and D for disgraceful. Both Republican and Democratic candidates for governor of that great state have endorsed the measure. It proposes to redefine the basic word “person,” applying it to fertilized eggs. The goal of this mischief, as many have noted, is to outlaw all abortions with no exceptions—even for rape or incest, or when a woman’s li…
Read More…wants to make us slaves again. Sigh. Palin’s over the top proclamation was coded in one of her specialty word salads that few can translate. Since I have been called the Palin Whisperer by one of my Twitter followers, let me give you the short version: Obama wants to make white people slaves!!!! In case you don’t want to watch the video, here’s the transcript: PALIN: Well, what we can glean from this is an understanding of why we are all on the ro…
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…ayer of my persuasion (we’ll call her Petra from Yuma) finds using the tax code to benefit such schools offensive to the First Amendment. In the past, Petra from Yuma could go into court to challenge the tax credit as a form of state-subsidized religion. But Petra (or a Thomas Jefferson redivivus, for that matter) is now out of luck. The core issue is whether providing the tax credit has the exact same practical impact as simply giving tax revenue…
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…ience, and then you add to that DNA, which has been called things like the code of codes, the holy grail. We give it this kind of supernatural significance. So, I think it’s a combination of being a society that values data, being a society that equates progress with scientific development, and being a society that thinks that genetics—in part because DNA comes from you, from us, from we—is the ultimate information, the ultimate data. It’s like th…
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…Rev. Stephen Broden, who gave a “benediction” at Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “Code Red” anti-health care rally). Broden claimed that “the social justice movement is built upon or predicated on the idea of liberation theology.” (They are, in fact, two separate religious movements.) “Liberation theology has its origin or source in socialism, communism, and Marxism,” he continued. (Not true; as assistant professor at Harvard Divinity School and RD contr…
Read More…known for attacks on Scientology, decided to send a message to the Catholic Church by shutting down the official Vatican website (still not responding as of this posting). What are the Church’s misdeeds, according to these code crusaders? They go back to the selling of indulgences in the 16th century. And more recently, of course, there’s the Church’s interference in Italy’s domestic politics. (Not just Italy, we’d have to say.) – The Eds. …
Read More…d probably hacked by Russia—revealed phrases like “cheese pizza” and other code words for child sex-trafficking. Hillary Clinton herself may have been involved. The ring seemed to include Satanic rituals. The Clinton campaign was engaged, on the side, with running a child sex-trafficking business. As German Lopez noted at Vox.com, the story seems to have begun on 4chan and spread through news aggregation websites and social media. The restaurant q…
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…ning) than on religion, defined in terms of religious institutions. Ethics codes, like the Code of Ethics for Nurses of the American Nurses Association, emphasize the importance of patients’ spiritual well-being and the NANDA International, which develops language around nursing diagnoses, recognizes three diagnoses related to spirituality and spiritual distress. In medical and broader public discourse about religion, spirituality, and medicine, i…
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…e strings of his electric bass to bang out a rhythm that sounds like Morse code. When all twelve performers are on stage, the sounds that they make together are nothing less than astonishing. On top of it all rests the falsetto voice of the band’s vocalist, Jón Birgisson, who sings the lyrics with a keening wail: Bakvio sk´yjaból vaknar sól úr dvala Svalar sér vio kalda dropa regnsins leikur sér vio heita loga eldsins Byr til regnboga A rough tran…
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