Religion Dispatches
…f. These are the teachers of tomorrow’s clergy. A hymn at my the fundamentalist church of my childhood included the lyrics, “He [Jesus at the crucifixion] could have called 10,000 angels, instead He died alone for you and me.” He could have called 10,000 angels, but instead he called 10,000 religion scholars. (And let’s not start a Twelve Days of Christmas cascading laundry list here, or this essay will never end.) The numbers tell the story. The…
Read More…uslim high school students, secularists, and yes, Mormons, are also on his list. Perusing my inbox, a sampling: “Obama’s Fraudulent Faith Just Unmasked.” “Obama’s Economic Policy Directly Opposes the Bible.” “Rick Santorum is Right: Satan Has Targeted America.” “Stand Strong: Stop the Intimidation Today.” “Twisted Scripture: Overcoming the Lies of Homosexuality.” “URGENT: Stop Sharia Law in Florida.” “Obama Withholds Important Opt-Out for Christia…
Read More…conducted by the Open Stories Foundation, thorny historical issues top the list of reasons why Mormons leave. These issues include the disputed origins of The Pearl of Great Price, a book of Mormon scripture, the historic practice of polygamy by Joseph Smith and other early Mormon leaders, and the Church’s 130-year ban on full participation by people of African descent. Controversial issues like these are not addressed in official church materials…
Read More…y offensive it is to a Jewish person to see Anne Frank’s name on a similar list—only, this time, one meant to be taken seriously? Finally, though, there’s the weird fact that we Jews are offended by Baptism of the Dead even though we don’t believe in it. I assume none of my fellow Israelites really believe that because someone puts a dead person’s name in a jar, that person is really converted to another religion. In other words, we’re offended b…
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…ing, baby-aborting, and, now, an elderly-killing people, and he used it to promote his own agenda. A false, but oft-heard stereotype of US citizens is that they are all fat. I, willfully, used this stereotype to further my own agenda. Again, I apologize, because I think it is wrong to do so. Someone who is aiming for the highest office in the United States, as Santorum is, should be held to a high moral standard, as the strong historical and curre…
Read More…President of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, revealed how the witness list reflected only one religious view of the matter when he said the contraception coverage requirement is “very dangerous to religious people with our kind of convictions.” Virginia Democrat Gerald Connolly, a Catholic who last year said a related Issa hearing reminded him of a “latter-day Torquemada” conducting “an inquisition against the secular state,” called today’s h…
Read More…ses the LDS “Family Search” genealogy database today must scroll through a list of policies including the proviso that names of “Jewish Holocaust victims” should not be submitted by non-family members, and then must indicate that they are in keeping with policy when they submit names for proxy rites. But violations continue, and they are a source of great shame and embarrassment. Perhaps more can be done. Listening in on conversations among Mormon…
Read More…ah Cummings (D-MD), the son of two Pentecostal ministers, accused Issa of “promoting a conspiracy theory that the federal government is conducting a ‘war’ on religion.” Cummings added that “The pill has had a profound impact on their well being, far more than any man in this room could know.” Maloney, before she left the hearing, took on Issa in her statement: “What I want to know is, where are the women? I look at this panel, and I don’t see one…
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…but can’t afford them; those who want to marry but are barred by law. The list goes on. Democracy suffers too. The essence of democracy is that we, the people, get to choose our values. We don’t discover them inscribed in the cosmos. So everything must be open to question, to debate, to change. there can be no fixed truth except that everyone has the right to offer a new view. It’s a process without end, whose outcome should never be predictable….
Read More…will see this accommodation as “something they can mark off their shopping list”— referring to the USCCB’s demands from its Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty. “They will come back to the political establishment, Republican and Democrat, to begin carving out the rest of what they want,” said O’Brien. “They have now an entree into being able to demand further from the political establishment knowing that the political establishment will bend the…
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