Religion Dispatches
…ich has already paid a well-publicized visit to the church of John Hagee. That was while his campaign was in the tank but too long ago (March) to be seen as the divine bullet his campaign needed. That came by way of Herman Cain (also of the church of narcissism) and now Gingrich hopes the church of Trump will catapult him to the top of the fend-for-yourself heap. The televangelist pilgrimage is hardly new. Mike Huckabee is now himself a televangel…
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…aps the corrective for appropriation, in either case, is proper citation. That’s what Ikeda, the East Bay Meditation Center teacher, wants, demanding of Western Buddhists “not only awareness” of source cultures “but attribution and acknowledgment.” Such attribution comes sparingly from teachers of corporate mindfulness, many of whom stress the secular nature of the practice. Kabat-Zinn, for instance, chooses not to identify as a Buddhist despite h…
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…uncement, conservatives immediately attacked Obama’s requirement, stating that empathy was “code” for a judge who would legislate from the bench (a position satirized by one observer who noted that Jesus himself, a noted proponent of empathy, would have been opposed by the GOP as well). They’ve taken a fresh new idea and wrapped it in the lexicon of the same old culture wars. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell stated that Obama wanted a judge…
Read More…stroy it, and therefore also from the national and international policies that impede the promotion of positive values.” On this marching route there has been complete consensus. Even the only bishop of black Africa who in recent months had spoken out in favor of “openness” to divorce, Gabriel Charles Palmer-Buckle of Accra, elected by the bishops of Ghana as their delegate to the synod, was found to be in agreement with all present in the defense…
Read More…of religious liberty, but Jesus promises eternal torture if they exercise that freedom to worship anyone but him. His musings that we should “turn the other cheek” and “love our enemies” from Matthew 5 are lovely sentiments, but they are—and should be—tempered by the everlasting torment Jesus implies in passages like Mark 16:16, in which he says “…the one who does not believe will be condemned.” In his recent op-ed in The Atlantic, Senator Chris C…
Read More…moved from September 30th to August 14th. The Liberty Institute believes that, This documentation shows that the commander indeed reassigned Monk in a highly irregular manner immediately after her ultimatum to him regarding his views on same-sex marriage. This is totally consistent with his accusation, and totally at odds with the Air Force’s new official explanation. That’s a lot of intention to read into a date change the Air Force has never de…
Read More…local concern that he wasn’t going to comment on, when he otherwise has (albeit in a perfunctory way) called for the promotion of women’s rights in other parts of the Middle East? And since Obama was promoting the rights and freedom of religious minorities last night, wouldn’t this case fall under his concern? There are good religion questions. They just don’t get asked….
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…fetime of good works and active commitment to “social justice,” something that Beck has said are code words for Communism and Nazism. Look, Frank Capra wasn’t exactly known for his subtle messages. Yet, somehow, Beck manages to reinterpret the movie through an unregulated free-market ideological Ayn Rand prism and message of Christian conservatism. For real? Either Beck has never watched the movie, or he’s so conservatively deluded that he thinks…
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…eats and assaults have left Nader wanting to leave Yemen. “I want a place that gives me freedom, to worship my religion, to be gay without consequence, to practice art,” he says. But if an offer came to relocate, he would still have concerns. “I worry they will take my passport, essentially my country and my family from me,” he says. “I will not be able to come back; I will not be able to support my siblings.” China: Some parents unhappy with new…
Read More…ng new. For Hinn, however, the problem is deeper. With the immense wealth that the ministry has fleeced from its followers, his Gulfstream jet Dove One, and the focus on prosperity, it may be that the healing evangelist is going to have to pay a hefty sin tax to prevent his wife’s divorce attorney from uncovering all sorts of financial malfeasance in the divorce proceedings. The announcement from the ministry raises eyebrows as well. Hinn’s web pa…
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