Religion Dispatches
…ion and, intriguingly, that he “adds to that diversity,” which is probably code for a less-than-orthodox approach to the faith. Huntsman is helped also by the fact that whereas Mormonism may be the most intriguing thing about candidate Romney, candidate Huntsman plays rock-and-roll and rides motorcycles. 3. He needs to show well in New Hampshire, but it’s South Carolina he is banking on. His campaign team is already heavy with recycled McCain pers…
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…ntracts to family friends; and how he ordered his staff to violate IRS tax code. Falwell’s been able to get away with such behavior partly because he doesn’t fear his board of trustees, which is essentially just a collection of close friends of the family. As noted above, Mark DeMoss, the one trustee who did speak up in disagreement of Falwell’s endorsement of Trump, was immediately removed from the board—a testament to Falwell’s Trumpian fragilit…
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…c at large was being introduced to the problem of pedophilia within the American Catholic Church. Perhaps most disturbingly, we learned of the systemic coverups in which bishops reassigned priests, failed to involve the authorities, and looked the other way with full knowledge that sexual assaults were occurring. The pedophilia crisis revealed the lengths which bishops and priests would go to protect an all-male celibate clerical power base. The p…
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…y interest so much as being able to go back and retrieve cultural and historical references of the black female presence within the African diaspora that say the black woman is God. I was more interested in black women taking on that ideology and having them affirm that in a creative way. But some are saying it’s problematic to even take on this idea of the black woman being God. What are the spiritual ramifications of that for the black woman? Hi…
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…essive French colonial regime between 1791-1804—a war fought by enslaved Africans, escaped maroons, and free people of color—incited colossal fear in the hearts of White plantation owners (and non-land-owners) across the Americas. This was largely due to religious racism and the fear of Black self-emancipation. On August 14, 1791, a Pan-African congress and Vodou ceremony was held in Bwa Kayiman, Haiti to establish political solidarity and elicit…
Read More…y, racism, and hatred, which continues to plague everyday experiences of African Americans and others in our country. So, in this vein some might say Obama’s comments were both warranted and true. To be sure, I am one of those people—I too desire to believe in the possibility of real change towards a radically just society. However, in light of this particular historical moment and all that this moment represents, I have to say that Obama was “out…
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…r tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.” Reagan’s caricature of the “welfare queen” cemented it in the American imaginary: By the time the “welfare queen” finally emerged on the national stage, the American public was primed for a face to be attached to the perceived waste, fraud, and abuse they saw as enabled by indulgent government programs and absent accountability. In a song supposedly about the plight of the working cla…
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…They do not want the church. They are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers.” Babini has since denied ownership of these words (though the Guardian noted his legacy of “accusing Jews of exploiting the Holocaust.”) Nevertheless, the Italian Bishops’ Conference, with some predictable prodding from the American Jewish Committee, felt obliged to declare the remarks: “entirely contrary to the official line and…
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…their Americanness. Should American Jews be hyphenated citizens? Jewish-American or American Jew; hyphen or no hyphen. Jews as an ethnos, like Irish-Americans, or Jews as carrier of a religion, like American Catholics? The American Jew lives in the anxiety of the hyphen, and flourishes there. The hyphen allows for considerable leeway in terms of legitimate negotiation between one’s Jewish and American identity. Today it seems that the complex nego…
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…so much for the general public, but to translate things that are by non-Americans for American scholars and a public that’s not the same public as New York Times readers. This is something that struck and surprised me: how much translation there is in each of the sub-theological worlds of North America. Knowing and being able to read in one language says nothing of the real access to the idea of coming from that linguistic world. We know that ther…
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