Religion Dispatches
…as Yugoslav, and most recently almost destroyed. And today? As I board the flight to Sarajevo, I’m not sure if I should expect a post-Soviet wasteland, an eerily quiet former war zone, or something else. The flight, though, is reassuringly undistinguished. There are lots of Bosnians, white and Western enough to pass for everyday Americans, though the occasional hijabs might throw you off. There are a few Americans, who seem to be intrepid backpack…
Read More
…oves you, and we want your happiness…I don’t know. We’re still trying our best to do it. We got to listen to people. Jesus died on the cross for them as much as he did for me. Again, generous and pastoral but somewhat off-target. Every bishop knows he has gay priests in the ranks—pretending otherwise is surely as much of a moral issue as, say, same-sex marriage. Gay priests work in dioceses and religious orders as pastors, teachers, administrato…
Read More
…rank and authority of a chief or king,” he wrote in The Golden Bough, the best of them “perceive how easy it is to dupe their weaker brother and to play on his superstition for their own advantage. Not that the sorcerer is always a knave and impostor; he is often sincerely convinced that he really possesses those wonderful powers which the credulity of his fellows ascribes to him.” The savviest magician-king, in other words, tells the people what…
Read More…prevailing sense of early 21st century LDS institutional life is that the best way to deal with such anxieties is to push through them, and that the best expression of the faith is the projection of a sense of assurance as polished and attractive as the storefronts at City Creek Mall. That’s how most Mormons plan to walk through what may very well be a season of public relations nightmares, as Romney’s GOP candidacy brings even greater scrutiny t…
Read More
…refugees were a ‘threat’ to Polish identity.” Russia: Orthodox TV channel offers to buy one-way tickets to help gay people leave country Tsargrad TV, a channel affiliated with right-wing Russian Orthodox activists and modeled after Fox News, offered to pay for a one-way ticket overseas for gay people who want to emigrate. The channel was funded by Konstantin Maofeev, a billionaire known as “God’s oligarch” who dreams of Vladimir Putin becoming a…
Read More…l—the Muslim eastern half and the Jewish western half—have in common large numbers of socially conservative residents who look down on homosexuality. “In the west, you have Orthodox Jews, and in the east you have Arabs—and the Arabs are so homophobic,” says Khaled Alqam, a gay Arab, while sitting under a heater on the patio of the Video Pub in Jerusalem. “They think if you’re gay, you’re a spy.” According to the story, the bar is attracting straig…
Read More
…only Israeli projectiles fired into Gaza which cause casualties. The total number of Israeli projectiles fired into Gaza is bound to be significantly larger. In a post on the recent J Street poll on American Jewish opinion, Peter Beinart notes that while young Jews are still experiencing an “attachment” to Israel, “that connection is going hand in hand with substantial alienation from this Israeli government. And that alienation exists even though…
Read More
…a portable fuel-less generator and filter-equipped water bottles. The show offers plenty of reasons that would-be shoppers should stock up on all these survivalist goods. Bakker spends most of his time on-air discussing how current events match up with biblical prophecy, and the 2016 election has been a frequent theme. He’s voiced concern that if Hillary Clinton is elected the government will shut down his ministry and all other religious activity…
Read More
…o-gooders—we should respond with—more noblesse oblige? A government of the best and the brightest, the myth of meritocracy, a carrot for strivers and the bludgeon or the dole, depending on which party is in power, for those who’ll never make the cut? Thin gruel. Randy writes: “faith functions best from the margins of society and not in the councils of power. When you conflate religion with the state, as some members of The Family are prone to do,…
Read More
…rtheless put the number at roughly 338,000. I am willing to work with this number until a better one comes along. Of this number, roughly 8,000 congregations claim upwards of 1,000 members; most are smaller, indeed most are much smaller. My concept is this: I think we can create a Christian Honor Corps (CHC) of perhaps 10,000 persons. Persons like myself who take our responsibility to monitor Christian extremist thought seriously and who are willi…
Read More