Religion Dispatches
…I fervently wish that Mr. Obama would say a bit more about the problem of cheap grace. Reminding us that people who work very hard for very little are not the abusers of cheap grace, but that others in well-feathered nests who are preaching sacrifice might be in real trouble on the cheap grace front. Obama cannot and should not condemn those in the electorate who buy into Romney’s “there will be showers of blessing” message, but he probably does …
Read More…es ECI’s leadership – knows this to be the case. Which makes ECI’s video a cheap lie — yet another in a long litany of desperate efforts by the far right to convert the largely liberal American Jewish community to neo-conservatism, hawkish policies on Israel, and the belief that “Barack Hussein Obama” is a Muslim. That said, there actually are two interesting forms of antisemitism going on here. First is the antisemitism of ECI itself. To tug at…
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…he Washington Post reports. “Because, you know, it’s been banned.” Finland: 800+ same-sex couples married in first month; Lutheran priests barred from officiating More than 800 same-sex couples were married in March after marriage equality went into effect on the first of the month; 770 had already been in civil partnerships. The Lutheran Evangelical Church has decreed that priests are not permitted to marry same-sex couples and some bishops warne…
Read More…trast in how religious conservatives view the role of government. First in Nashville, the Metro Council has voiced its “support for extending workplace protections to gays, lesbians and transsexual people working for city contractors.” The measure comes up for a final vote on March 15. Some churches in Nashville are up in arms over the measure. [Rev. Maury] Davis, pastor of the Cornerstone Church, a Pentecostal congregation in Madison, said the ex…
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…(the SBC is the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, headquartered in Nashville with over 16 million members and 44,000 churches) met to hear the recommendation of a task force reporting on whether to change the name of the organization. Specifically, the issue was whether to take “Southern” out of the title and create a new name for a denomination founded in Georgia in 1845, by and for slaveholders. The result was reported in breaking news M…
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…s. Without Bakersfield and Haggard—rougher, twangier, and more direct than Nashville would allow—there would be no pre-Rubber Soul Beatles sound (go back and listen to it again), no Gram Parsons or Sweetheart of the Rodeo, no Steve Earle, Dwight Yoakam or Sturgill Simpson, arguably no X or the Replacements (no, really, listen to it all again). Haggard’s band, the Strangers, were a tight band, more precise and fluid than anybody this side of Captai…
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…Catholic right. Meanwhile, Sen. Marsha Blackburn is an “active member” of Nashville’s Christ Presbyterian in Nashville. Her Dec. 3 tweet smearing China with “5,000 years of cheating and stealing” was ‘liked’ thousands of times. She has also attempted a “Stop COVID” act that charges China with unleashing a “biological weapon” on America. Such blatant racism has elicited no comment from Christ Presbyterian’s leadership, despite their public relatio…
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…final presidential address yesterday at the convention’s Annual Meeting in Nashville, TN. The gathering has invited national scrutiny from Southern Baptist stakeholders and curious observers interested in how this denomination will address the perceived threat of Critical Race Theory and the ongoing crisis of sexual abuse against women and alleged cover-ups in SBC churches and the highest level of denominational leadership. Much of the SBC news cy…
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…inancial advisor Dave Ramsey told a rapt audience last Thursday evening in Nashville. “Socialists” mistakenly believe FDR got us out of the Depression while “capitalists” know it was actually World War Two, he explained in a synopsis ripped from the Tea Party/Beck/Barton school of historical interpretation. FDR, Ramsey continued, had listened to John Maynard Keynes instead of Adam Smith, or God, and from that point forward Americans started down a…
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…connection, once burning with possibility and joy, began to cool, as cell phone calls dwindled and numbers eventually changed or were disconnected. As our shared realities drifted apart in their likeness, like Pigpen, I also turned to technologies that promised connection to try to tamp down the yearning and temper that sense of loss. Where Pigpen called up the trusty telephone operator, I did my pining alone, with only the camaraderie of a searc…
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