Religion Dispatches
…o the February 17 statement which simply reads “Press Release: Hinn Family News Reports confirmed by Ministry Executive.” The big D is nowhere to be found on the front page, but is on a subsequent page. The statement itself points out that “Pastor Benny Hinn and his immediate family were shocked and saddened to learn of this news on February 17 without any previous notice.” I doubt Hinn was shocked. The proceedings state that Benny Hinn moved out…
Read More
…eated last week in the Senate. But there are reasons why it should be. The new Secretary of the Army, John McHugh, came to the Pentagon after serving as the representative of New York’s 23rd District, where last month conservative activists forced the Republican running for McHugh’s old seat, Dede Scozzafava, out of the race for being insufficiently conservative. McHugh’s own culture war credentials are solid, earning him kudos from religious righ…
Read More
…nd 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 Mr. Potter is the hero…
Read More
…ry becomes even murkier. Take Trijicon, for example, chosen from a Deseret News listicle, “20 companies with religious roots.” Deseret News included Trijicon in the list because the company “inscribed coded biblical references on high-powered rifle sights used by the U.S. military.” That’s it. Other than the founder’s purported religious beliefs, its inclusion is arbitrary. Why not include Ebay, whose founder Pierre Omidyar is a Buddhist, or any o…
Read More
…our brains, which makes the admonition “an eye for an eye” in Hammurabi’s code sound less like savagery and more like a way to keep everybody in check. To punish more than the guilt deserves has been a legal problem, apparently, since at least 1792 B.C.E or so. The distinction between justice and vengeance matters, because vengeance costs an enormous amount to taxpayers, and, as reformers on both sides of the aisle argue, our own moral selves. Pe…
Read More…efs; and is a non-profit organization as described in the Internal Revenue Code. Religious organizations protested that this four-pronged test would only exempt houses of worship, but not, say, a church that served people of different faiths through a soup kitchen. Under the new proposed rule (which is still subject to a public comment period), an employer seeking an exemption would only have to meet the forth prong of the test, thus widely expand…
Read More
…salem Post announced it had fired columnist Naomi Chazan after she and the New Israel Fund (NIF) threatened legal action against the paper. The Post, along with other Israeli newspapers, had printed an unflattering ad critical of Chazan and the US-based philanthropy of which she is president. After running the anti-Chazan ad, the Post subsequently published one that defended her and the NIF. But Chazan’s lawyers said the initial ad constituted lib…
Read More
…not sure she has subverted older paradigms as much as made them shiny and new with her irresistible narrative style. Indeed, the film could be read as a fairly simplistic rendering of women as the source of evil; tales that were born among ancient Mediterranean patriarchies, but have had a long and troubled history in the United States as well. In my work, I have explored the connection between misogyny, American religion, and images of sexuality…
Read More
…nt to reflect as attitudes will generally change as society changes.” Pink News reports that May’s comments were given a “frosty reception” by the DUP. Scotland: Glasgow cathedral will marry same-sex couples St. Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow will begin to allow same-sex couples to marry in the church, “after bishops, clergy and laity all voted overwhelmingly in favour of the move,” reports the Scottish Sun: Speaking to Pink News, the Provost of the…
Read More
…n Way has begun a petition to send to publishers urging them to ignore the new guidelines. Others, including those who count themselves among the board’s most vehement critics, say the impact on the actual writing of textbooks may not be that dire. Still, that doesn’t spell good news for public education. For no matter what the outcome of the standards on textbooks—either in Texas or across the country—the board is clearly rewriting history to fit…
Read More