Religion Dispatches
…or celebrity status. The Orlando nightclub shooter reportedly checked his phone for news about the shooting during the actual event; the man who murdered hostages at the Hyper Cacher kosher grocery store in Paris last year filmed the attack on a GoPro camera (in that light, the company’s slogan, Be a HERO, seems chilling). It would be wrong to ignore these shooters—their acts have enormous consequences—but you feel complicit, somehow, when you pa…
Read More
…lm festival to cancel the event after death and arson threats were made by phone and social media. According to Reuter’s Makini Brice, “A senator added to the pressure to cancel the Massimadi festival, saying it would promote homosexuality and that impoverished Haiti had other priorities.” Australia: Poll confirms majority support for marriage equality, rejection of plebiscite A new poll released this week that most Australians support marriage eq…
Read More
…evangelical magazine Relevant. The latter’s headline, “Report: A Third of American Evangelicals Don’t Believe Jesus Was God” is more typical of most coverage, but CT’s headline, “State of Theology: Evangelicals Hold Steady on Doctrine, More Outspoken on Politics,” gestures toward what will be more of interest to observers of the Christian Right in an election year. In order to understand the significance of something like the State of Theology Su…
Read More
…equality—71% of Americans support it. They want to outlaw abortion—85% of Americans think it should be legal. They want a nation of Christians like them—73% of Americans are more welcoming of religious pluralism. They’d almost certainly like to ban contraception, too, but something like 91% of Americans are in favor of it, right? Their benighted ideas and ideology are wildly unpopular, so they need an anti-democratic institution to impose it on e…
Read More…hey distributed “6 million voter guides, 8 million mail pieces, 15 million phone calls, 500,000 doors knocked on by volunteers, and radio advertising covering 56 congressional districts and 22 U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races,” they are now (apparently as I write this) surveying voters to learn “who went to the polls and why.” Instructive for those of us who follow the influence of the religious right on the tea party movement (arguing that it’…
Read More
…Connelly observes in his important new book, Capitalism and Christianity, American Style, one of the most striking features of a contemporary Religious Studies department is its easy acceptance of permanent pluralism as the necessary starting point for religious reflection. It’s easy to miss how new, how important, and how startling that starting point really is. Gone are the days when even conservative Christians dream of the eventual “conversio…
Read More
…veler. His time machine is the Tardis, which looks like a police box—think phone booth—but it’s bigger on the inside than the outside, can fly, and may actually be a living creature. He adventures through time and space, usually accompanied by one or more human companions who assist him in righting wrongs, liberating the oppressed, fighting alien menaces, and averting unspeakable disasters. His alien origins give him a sharp mind and extraordinary…
Read More
…T people. Munson sent word out across the Mormon grapevine, through email, phone, and Facebook, inviting fellow churchgoing and believing Mormons to join her at the Pride Parade in Sunday dress. And Mormons responded by the hundreds, arriving at the parade route yesterday morning in their church clothes—dress shirts and ties for men, dresses for women. Some carried scriptures in hand. Others pushed their children in strollers, or carried them on t…
Read More…ds that the Second Coming will occur after an era of Christian dominance). American Vision is a non-profit, tax exempt, educational organization. Like many of these groups, DeMar also has a companion organization that can raise money and promote candidates for elected office: Vision to America. Yesterday, Vision to America sent a fundraising appeal in support of Nevada’s Republican nominee to the U.S. Senate, Sharron Angle, from South Carolina Sen…
Read More
…y came of it… [Crutcher’s] efforts were, however, carried out over the telephone and the conversations were primarily with receptionists. Rose takes the effort farther. Video is far more compelling than recordings of phone calls. According to the Los Angeles Times: Rose, the third of eight children, grew up in San Jose. Her father is an engineer for Sun Microsystems. She was home schooled… and also attended a part-time Christian school and a junio…
Read More