Religion Dispatches
…ns of sisters dedicated to serving the needs of the sick and the poor, the new Vatican Code of Canon Law cloistered them all, imposing rigid rules that undercut their ministries. As the century moved on, however, relations between the Vatican and the sisters seemed to improve. In its effort to respond to the horrors of the twentieth century, the Vatican ordered the sisters to become better educated, to update their rules and habits, and to begin m…
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…with our colleagues and friends—even with opponents—a seal of trust exists between us. Just as we do not plagiarize, we honor the code of privacy and do not make public that which was meant to remain private. For me, that trust was broken in the midst of this passionate debate in a way that tells me we have crossed a line. Writing a Facebook wall comment in response to a May 3rd debate between Gordis and Peter Beinart at Columbia University, I ref…
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…my apartment need repair. Can we get NATO to send some army engineers in? New York City also desperately needs new airports, which I’m sure we could build up at least partway, and then address the American people as to why we were forced to build it without clearing it first; after all, New York is vital to the American and global economy. If we’re going to transgress certain democratic principles, at the very least we should do so in our own cl…
Read More…agons and strenuously defending the “homosexual practice” forbidden in its code of ethics, the school is reaching out. 51 of the school’s 92 faculty members responded, seeking “forgiveness for ways we might have added to your pain.” “We’re hoping to do a better job of talking to and loving each other and holding true to our scriptural principles,” said Jane Higa, the school’s vice president for student life. That doesn’t mean the school’s policy w…
Read More…atchell a patron of the group, a move that makes him, in the words of Pink News, “one of the first openly gay persons appointed to a senior role in a mainstream, non-gay Muslim organization.” Tatchell: “I hope that by taking up this position I can help build bridges between the Muslim and LGBT communities. We share a similar experience of intolerance and victimisation. I want to see us working together for our common good, so that we can live toge…
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…. No, they’ll correct each other, benefit each other, and we’ll all be the better for it. This kind of thinking has a history. It’s little different from the religious flavor of the European Enlightenment; figures like Isaac Newton and, more soberly, Thomas Jefferson. Much of 19th-century Anglophone theology stood in awe of what zoology could teach about God’s creation. Until Darwin. Since The Origin of Species appeared in 1859, there’s been littl…
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…Lemon test,” said Steve Newton. The hot-button issues of human cloning (a code word for abortion, Newton says) and global warming are linked to increase the appearance of evolution’s controversy. Fostering Fear of Science The science blog Denialism has a list of themes used in the global warming debate that have been similarly deployed in intelligent design battles: Well-funded think tanks are capable of derailing a scientific consensus, in this…
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…d the Echoing Press.) Returning to the initial question: why have American news outlets overlooked the conflict between Israeli rightists and leftists, especially since Americans have been active on both sides? Could it be that the Israeli debate underscores the American media’s marginalization of religious progressives, its monolithic coverage of Israel and its own acquiescence to conservative ideology? Since its inception, Israel has had a wide…
Read More…ocument blueprint as it rewrites its textbook guidelines. The story in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday by Russell Shorto brilliantly laid out the history of members of TBOE and their attempt to hijack the education of America’s children with religious doctrine. It’s a must read for anyone who wants to understand the motivations of the Christian Right regarding the long-term goals for our education system, playing out now in Texas. As board m…
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…ion from a grounded Jewish space and in a textured Jewish vocabulary. This new tenor, tone, sensibility, aesthetic, and hermeneutic of social justice as a textually-grounded Jewish practice opens up the door to a new mode of envisioning Judaism and Jewish identity which moves beyond denominational labels (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal, Humanist…). The Judaism that is being constructed by these practices is a Judaism wh…
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