Religion Dispatches
…g days at work. On Wednesday and Thursday he saw more than twice the usual number of patients at his abortion clinic, Aid For Women, in Kansas City, Kansas. But then, this has been an unusual few weeks. Since mid-June, Dr. Yeomans (and the other abortion providers in Kansas) have found themselves scrambling to see as many patients as possible before today; as of July 1, these facilities will not be able to offer abortion services until they show…
Read More…of course unique for this year, I learned that it is possible to blog your way through Ramadan, sharing many ideas along the way, and yet still keep some things between you and Allah alone. The idea to do this one hundred-day blog came to me on my recent return from Indonesia. While there, my friends said hajj would be a challenge because of gender restrictions. Then a friend described people doing tawaf, or circumambulation around the kaaba, whil…
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…one recent example, Patriot Mobile—a NAR 7 Mountains Dominionism-inspired phone company in Texas—bankrolled the campaigns of 11 candidates for school board in the suburbs of Ft. Worth in May 2022. They all won, and they subsequently took control of four school boards. In one school district (but probably not the last) 40 books were soon pulled from the shelves for “review.” It remains to be seen whether book burnings will become more a part of th…
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…Pink News reports that another campaign, We’re Coming Back, is also under way. Northern Ireland: Opposition to “conscience clause” builds A “conscience clause” bill that would permit anti-gay discrimination in Northern Ireland has attracted the support of the Catholic Church, but a petition campaign by the group All Out attracted more than 100,000 signatures in 48hours, 30,000 of them from Northern Ireland. Switzerland: Parishioners support pries…
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…Johnson, a fundamentalist megachurch pastor who had one of the biggest megaphones in Ohio in 2004. With his 2,000-member Fairfield Christian Church, Johnson ridiculed the early participants of We Believe Ohio, joking that their combined congregations could fit into a phone booth. Along with Rev. Rod Parsley—the movement’s bombastic mouthpiece who called on Ohio Christians (who he called the largest “interest group” in the state) to “lock and load”…
Read More…liarly capitalistic sense, cremation may deserve to be understood the same way we now understand observing the Sabbath and keeping kosher—that is, as one of those aspects of Judaism that modern American Jews feel free to pick and choose from, honoring them in increasingly unique ways, giving respect to both tradition and individual preference. “Duality is one of the main characterizations of the Jew in postmodern existence,” says Rabbi Bachman. “O…
Read More…sue in their initial complaints to the school district.) Every step of the way, Freshwater and his lawyers have wrapped the cases in obfuscation and paranoid accusations of “being set up.” By the time the hearing is over, it is likely it will have cost the tiny school district almost $1 million. Also, his supporters have accused the Dennis family of making up evidence by altering a photo of Zachary’s burned arm. Coach Dave Daubenmire, the creator…
Read More…certificate in Washington state for his step-daughter and her partner. Norway: Church of Norway Won’t Let Priests Marry Same-Sex Couples This week the Church of Norway, a protestant denomination, rejected a proposal that it allow religious weddings for same-sex couples, reports Agence France Presse, even though most of the country’s bishops supported the proposal. Norway was among the first countries in Europe to grant homosexuals full rights,…
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…(Matthew 1:1-3) demonstrates that “election” is a fluid concept that can always be re-negotiated. What recourse do our society’s pariahs have? When will their acts be declared righteous, and when will their accusers and attackers be called to account? When will the church become a place of protection rather than a place of rejection? A third potential point of reformation is in the area of color-blindness. This area is perhaps the most important t…
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…fish to fry and tend to treat the liberals with disdain. It’s sort of the way the Business and Professional Women’s Club saw the National Organization for Women or how the NAACP saw SNCC in the 60s. Poorly handled disagreements within movements are nothing new; in my humble opinion, disagreements among the progressive, liberal, and centrist wings of religion are especially poorly handled. We don’t like conflict, especially in the family. We can s…
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