Religion Dispatches
…in the dessert, coincidentally right there in Makkah so we can visit this site on our pilgrimage. Of course it wasn’t Makkah yet, but that’s another story. Now, here’s my favorite part. Hajar asks her baby daddy, well what will we do out here in the desert? And he looks and away, “God will provide.” Well thank you very much, old man—that’s just what I will do then, rely on God. So he walks off and leaves them; leaves a woman and her child, his ch…
Read More…ce you go for a meeting; every gate in the airport; even on a construction site, a place designated for salah and is inclusive of women and men. Everywhere. I could make note of the time (or hear the adhan) and then make my way to the prayer place. They always have a wash station for ablutions. They always have prayer scarves for women, some women only wear one when they pray. Even when I was just visiting friends or in private homes if I said I w…
Read More…burn a Qur’an on Saturday, had agreed to not proceed with his plan because the promoters of the Park51 project had agreed to move it to a different location, Sharif El-Gamal, Chairman and CEO of SoHo Properties, which owns the site, today issued this statement to RD: It is untrue that the community center known as Park51 in lower Manhattan is being moved. The project will proceed as planned. What is being reported in the media today is a falsehoo…
Read More…antly calls the center Cordoba House, the same day Park51 revamped its Web site, and one of principals says he wants to sell. Apparently no one told him that in his absence the Cordoba House name was dropped in favor of Park51. Either he is being kept out of the information loop or there is a leadership struggle happening within the team. The only other alternative is that he really is just clueless, as his wife constantly referred to the project…
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…e been on a cross-country journey for the past several weeks, in which I visited with the Westboro Baptist Church clan in Topeka, Kansas, and attended Ted Haggard’s comeback church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In addition, I’ve talked to many many people along the way about their faith and religion. Most recently, I drove to Slab City, which is a forsaken piece of land out in the Colorado Desert near California’s Mexican border. People here say…
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…recent blog post by Chuck Norris on the American Family Association’s Web site summarizes what many evangelical commentators think about the president’s recent foray into all that is Park51. “Obama is not just rebooting America’s image in the Muslim world. He’s deepening and expanding Islamic belief, practice, culture around the world, like a Muslim missionary.” I think not… but if true… it might be exactly what the Creator ordered (cf. The Late,…
Read More…ucation analyst for Focus on the Family, said on the recently launched Web site TrueTolerance.org. Cushman appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 Wednesday night on CNN, and tried to put a pretty face on their efforts, saying: “We absolutely think every child should be protected from bullying.” She went on to try to explain, and this is where I began to wonder if conservative Christians ever really listen to themselves when they speak—because she hit the…
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…ndering if he was going to burn in Hell for eternity. Then he found my Web site and said it saved his life because he was to the point of despair.” Nate regularly fields inquiries from people caught up in violent family situations where narrow religious interpretations are used to justify control and abuse. While Rev. Sweeting worries about the children who hear the Phelps’ insults, and Nate Phelps is concerned for his nieces and nephews forced to…
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…churning religious melee can’t end well. Beck has just started another Web site “The Blaze,” where you can get news that Beck says “will pursue truth.” Beck would probably just accuse me of being a communist, but about what he is selling on Fox and at “The Blaze,” Vladimir Lenin is thought to have said it best: “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” Let’s hope that Beck’s lies about history, theology, and America won’t be told enough to beco…
Read MoreIn the wake of the arson at a planned Tennesse mosque site and the planned Quran burning at a Florida church on September 11, a coalition religious groups will meet this afternoon with Attorney General Eric Holder, as part of an effort to urge the Obama administration to do more to protect the religious freedom and safety of Muslims in the United States. In a meeting with Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Tom Perez on August 30, the Bap…
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