Religion Dispatches
…to “shari’ah law,” and did we need a party like Geert Wilders’ nationalist Freedom Party in the Netherlands? In his answer, McCarthy said he was an admirer of the incendiary, far-right, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant Wilders, who has likened the Qur’an to Mein Kampf. Although Wilders’ Freedom Party had one goal of banning the burqa, McCarthy nonetheless suggested that the U.S. should be be “like France” and ban the burqa. Instead, he maintained, th…
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…nterviewer, “Gays must have legal protections in terms of their rights and freedoms.” But in 2004 the government removed language protecting LGBTI people from a draft penal code, with the justice minister at the time saying it was “unnecessary to add sexual orientation because gender already covers it.” The timeline tracks anti-LGBT statements from columnists and party officials, including one made in 2010 by Aliye Kavaf, “the then state minister…
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…al “symbologist” character played by Tom Hanks in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Semiotics is mostly dense philosophy and linguistics with a dash of neuroscience thrown in. The deep semiotics of health is an attempt to recognize the signs and symbols of health and to take control over the largely unconscious processes that affect our minds-brains-bodies. The mash-up of these terms is necessary in light of contemporary science. Let me explain. Psyc…
Read More…rstanding of the interrelatedness of oppression. How do you jump and shout today after such tepid response yesterday? Time and again, members of the Black community have felt the brunt of angry white LGBTQ persons who have declared we are the reason such legislation as Prop 8 gets enacted. To counter, national LGBTQ agencies have even initiated strategies to increase Black allies in support of their work, especially state approval of same-sex marr…
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…lowing: “the only offense for which Jews can be ‘excommunicated’ in the US today is not to participate in these efforts [to support Israel]. Intermarriage, ignorance of the Jewish heritage, or lack of faith do not keep anyone from leadership in the American Jewish community today. Being against Israel or apathetic in its support does.” Allowing Zionism to define its own terms One hears a variety of arguments about why opposing Zionism is illegitim…
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…eaches that the separation of church and state is itself unconstitutional) promote the notion that affirmation of LGBTQ identities leads to national weakness. In addition to warning that public schools are grooming children into an “LGBTQ lifestyle,” they’ve worked with the Alliance Defending Freedom on anti-LGBTQ legislation. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of the institutionally subtle but politically powerful influence exerted by the NA…
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…—in history as well as beyond it. Differences Among Progressive Christians Today Are there divisions among progressive Christians today? I don’t think so, but certainly there are important, substantive differences. To generalize boldly, there are two points of view. I will label them—facetiously, and in hopes of offending them equally—the “purists” and the “accommodators.” The purists appreciate all four antecedents of the current progressive Chri…
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…ough the whole book that one of the most serious temptations of the church today is to see itself as a separate planet. We have become accustomed to this with the Benedict Option, but that’s just one example. The clerical disease is at the heart of this temptation to recreate a world with the clergy in charge of everything. That is clearly a world that the vast majority of Catholics don’t live in. It could be the most serious backlash when Francis…
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…e men in 19th-century New Orleans, but the story it tells connects to much today. Religion, race and politics are closely intertwined in American history and culture today. This is not a new phenomenon. I often tell my students that when we talk about American religion, we’re also talking about politics. And when we talk about American politics, we’re also talking about race. Religion, politics and race are not unconnected and sitting in separate…
Read More…rket. But it does seem that the two opposing traditions have come together today to act as a powerful rhetoric of gratitude as indebtedness. Today we have a thriving self-help industry that churns out a steady stream of books on pop psychology, happiness, and gratitude. How well do these grapple with the issues you’ve raised? I was a little surprised by how little attention is paid to the history of gratitude in the self-help literature. I see my…
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