Religion Dispatches
…ena. On Easter Sunday, an 11-year-old girl named Kara Neumann died from diabetic ketoacidosis. Treatments of insulin almost certainly would have controlled the ailment, but Kara’s parents (whose beliefs about physical healing were shaped in part by a Florida-based online ministry) chose to treat her with prayer in lieu of medical science. Dale and Leilani Neumann later told police that their daughter had not been examined by a physician in more th…
Read More…. His misuse of the Bible for reactionary politics is wrong. His dichotomy between evangelism and environmentalism is wrong. His demonization of thoughtful pro-environment Christians is wrong.” Robison’s agenda for the 2012 election draws from that same well of contempt for a contemporary secular democracy. Kaylor points to Robison’s June 3 blog post, which reads like a theo-economic merger of a religious right and Tea Party wishlist (a merger Rob…
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…r did ask me to help him understand.) So, what’s the “enormous difference” between ID and creationism? What Mr. Klinghoffer is responding to is a blog post I wrote about the latest Discovery Institute shenanigans—this time in Louisiana. I wrote that once again, after lobbying for a way to sneak the teaching of creationism into science class, the Discovery Institute has run away from a school board after members there actually used the word “creat…
Read More…e handed me a booklet called The Way to Happiness: A Common Sense Guide to Better Living. The rules in chapter one are indeed common sense: Get care when you are ill; Keep your body clean; Preserve your teeth; Eat properly; and Get Rest. Other rules caution against harmful drugs, excessive drinking, and sexual promiscuity. Two chapters are devoted to the Golden Rule, stated both positively and negatively (“Try not to do to things to others that yo…
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…roy successfully included in the Texas’ science standards such creationist code as “analyze and evaluate the sufficiency of scientific explanations concerning any data of sudden appearance, stasis, and the sequential nature of groups in the fossil records.” Another amendment says students will: “analyze and evaluate the scientific explanations concerning the complexity of the cell.” The wording could be used to justify the adoption of pro-intellig…
Read More…o nonviolence and diversity; and to Thomas Merton as “a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between people and religions.” Nary a conservative icon among them—and both Day and Merton are beloved by progressive Catholics. Even when conservatives thought they had finally gotten to their part of the program, jumping to their feet when Francis spoke of “our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development”—which has l…
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…ter for Media and Democracy’s Alex Kotch, 2019 tax returns reveal that at least some of its money comes from shipping supply billionaire and Republican mega-donor Richard Uihlein, and some from the Koch-linked DonorsTrust, which has been dubbed the “dark money ATM” of the Right. According to conservative commentator Matt K. Lewis, “sites like The Federalist try to bridge the gap” between more stodgy, traditional conservative outlets like the Natio…
Read More…Here, I think, is a better way to pose the question of the right relation between religion and politics as it relates to Obama’s long-suffering presidential candidacy. I propose the following as a sort of genealogy of the current confusion. 1) The two main political parties in the United States today are fairly loose coalitions, and since Reagan’s presidential victory in1980, the coalition that fractures worst loses. 2) Evangelical and Fundamenta…
Read More…cigarette and a beer (both forbidden according to the LDS Church’s dietary code, “The Word of Wisdom”), more substantial coverage this week is focusing on Romney’s service as bishop of his LDS congregation in Belmont, Massachusetts in the 1980s. On Monday, the Washington Post offered a revealing account of Bishop Romney’s interactions with Boston’s robust Mormon feminist community during tense years for the movement, when the LDS Church played a…
Read More…statistically significant effect” on charitable contributions in those zip codes after a scandal, and not only to Catholic-based charitable organizations. The researchers theorize that perhaps once a person stops attending church, the social pressure to be charitable declines. Interestingly, however, these same individuals mirror the statistical notion that even though an increasing number of Americans consider themselves religiously unaffiliated,…
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