Religion Dispatches
…ndeed the Republican Party’s official position is that the balance between promoting free exercise of religion and prohibiting religious tests for office “has been distorted by judicial rulings which attempt to drive faith out of the public arena.” What would be an appropriate public expression of faith in the public square? In the Republican Party platform, public display of the Ten Commandments and student-led prayer in public schools, because i…
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…when she was a teenage rock rebel in Durban, South Africa. (Rory is South African; Wendy was born in the U.K. but also raised in South Africa.) First introduced to Christianity at a Billy Graham Crusade, Wendy claims to have come face to face with Jesus while performing with her rock band at a Durban night club. “A few days after her Damascus Road conversion,” reads her biography on the web site for her book, Journal of the Unknown Prophet, “Wend…
Read More…not over land or politics, but is a clash of civilizations and religions. “Freedom” is not about human rights for all; it’s about Christianity ascendant. At the Freedom Federation Summit in Lynchburg, Virginia, last month, an entire session was devoted to “Israel, the Middle East, and Military Readiness.” (The event as a whole was designed to bring more African-American and Latino conservatives into the fold of the religious right, but racial just…
Read More…is a “Christian nation.” In fact, during the early period of the American republic America depended on many Muslims for its economic success. On the one hand, many of the African slaves that worked to produce the raw materials of early American industry were Muslims. On the other hand, during the trade of goods between India and New England, some of America’s trading partners were South Asian Muslims. These two economic factors helped keep the yo…
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…most of those pastors lead churches located in the South, and all them are African American. Strickland added that he’ll be speaking at the LifeWay Black Church leadership conference in North Carolina this month, “talking about this very thing—trying to figure out how to mobilize our African-American churches in SBC to be a part of this [work].” But Strickland isn’t naive about the steep uphill battle he and his colleagues face in dragging the SBC…
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…the 51st anniversary of the murder of Schwarner, Chaney and Goodman, nine African Americans were shot down in cold blood in the sanctuary of Emmanuel AME church in Charleston on June 17, 2015. Seven black churches have burned since that day, with conflicting reports on whether or not these churches burned because of arson, lightning or other causes. Meanwhile, several African American female pastors in South Carolina have had threatening letters…
Read More…“like many gay men and lesbians in Africa, my choice was between economic freedom and mental imprisonment”. Now living in London, Alimi is an ardent campaigner against the rising tide of homophobia in Africa, but he is also an academic lecturer at two universities in Berlin as well as an advisor to the World Bank. Alimi says the consequences of homophobia in Africa have been legal penalties, social ostracism and mob justice. Much less widely unde…
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…on their own terms? Stephen Prothero has pointed out that the traditional African religion of Yoruba is one of the world’s largest faiths and in his brilliant new book One Nation under Gods Peter Manseau has shown how the crucial role African religion played in the development of American religious syncretism. How will increased interaction with these religions enrich our global sense of faith? And what of Asia? Will our future historian chart th…
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…e experience of white privilege that marked Trayvon Martin for death, that freed his killer, that called out in Hines a racialized ire provoked by a racialized tragedy, and that will stir anxiety in Baskerville-Burrows and other parents of African-American children for years to come. I can’t possibly have a clue about that understanding of white privilege. Who am I to say what’s “helpful” here? “Helpful” to whom? To Reverend Baskerville-Burrows’ c…
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…lly there. And If you can’t fully communicate what you believe is best for African Americans at the NAACP convention, you can’t do it anywhere. So what was this speech about? I believe it was, in part, an obligation Romney knew he had to fulfill, but it also helped to reinforce the Tea Party racial grievances. It also allowed him to show his chutzpah by saying “Obamacare” in a convention hall that was populated predominately by African Americans….
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