Religion Dispatches
…say, and rather gingerly, “Ummm, if the young and healthy people don’t participate it kind of defeats the idea of how insurance works. Ummm, it’s like the kids need to pay a little more so other people can have coverage that’s affordable. Ummm, and maybe the president should be talking about this??” Yes, he should be talking about it. Universal health care coverage, which is what this law was supposed to achieve, is redistributive by its nature. A…
Read More…urch groups and Christian schools. Their party supply catalog always contains a small section dedicated to Jesus merchandise, which results in some odd juxtapositions. Here, for example, are the current most popular category themes on the OTC website: …
Read MoreReflecting on the recent execution of 21 Coptic Christians by ISIS fanatics in Libya, Rod Dreher, writing at the American Conservative, calls the incident “a sobering reminder of what real persecution looks like.” Coming from Dreher, for whom the future of American Christianity looks increasingly ominous, the line is sobering in itself. But he goes on: Yet it is also the kind of thing that people in this country who fear and loathe Christians poi…
Read More
…orld, Canadian news is often filled with the latest updates on the quasi-criminal actions and clearly racist and sexist pronouncements of US politicians. In the past month, however, Canadians who follow the news have had to look their own racism, sexism, and criminality straight in the eye. In the space of two weeks in February 2018, two juries acquitted white men accused of murdering young Indigenous people, raising charges of systemic injustice…
Read More
…social supports created in the wake of the Great Depression and World War II were reserved exclusively for whites. When African Americans finally began to receive a paltry share, the programs that were seen to be benefiting African Americans came under intense and bitter attack. Liberals rightly demonize Richard Nixon for playing the race card while forgetting that it was a liberal Democrat—Bill Clinton—who achieved the long-sought GOP goal of en…
Read More
Cloying sentimentality, saccharine pablum, ridiculous camp and embarrassing kitsch—in the contemporary moment the word “angel” hasn’t fared well among those who describe themselves as sophisticates or intellectuals. To many, angels don’t simply conjure superstitious beliefs, but embarrassing superstitious beliefs. Faith in God doesn’t quite raise as much opprobrium, if only because such beliefs may be recast in more intellectually sophisticated p…
Read More
…id, entering offices, climbing walls, threatening the safety of elected officials, and waving a Confederate flag for good measure. In response, President Trump repeated his false claims of election fraud, calling the insurrectionists “very special” and saying to them, “We love you.” President-Elect Biden’s response was impassioned, and rightly condemned the seditious assault on the Capitol, but it was also inadequate precisely because he continued…
Read More
…firsthand the rise, and then the fall, of his televangelist parents’ PTL ministry—to speak out against a ballot initiative up for vote tomorrow. If passed, Amendment 1 would modify North Carolina’s constitution to declare “marriage between one man and one woman” as “the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized.” In other words, if passed, Amendment 1 would not only ban same-sex marriage in North Carolina, but it would also prev…
Read More…in 1981-2) because the total airfare was like 250 US dollars. I had my air ticket before I applied for a visa locally. In the end, the quota prevented me from going, despite the “reasons” given. We don’t have a quota in the United States. So when I first went online to get general information (earlier this year while still in Indonesia listening to my friends’ incredulity), none of the US companies even had their 2010 hajj packages online yet. The…
Read More
…ted to get the kids thinking,” they told me. When I wondered if purchasing tickets for the kids using Salvation Army funds could be a violation of the church’s tax-exempt status, Miranda argued that she didn’t see a problem. Since the Bible is applicable to every facet of private and public life, she reasoned, how it would be possible to talk to the kids about anything government-related without jeopardizing their tax-exemption? “Our hands would b…
Read More