Religion Dispatches
…lthy gays and lesbians want to end our “religious freedoms” — which is the code phrase for “they want to pass hate crimes laws that make it illegal for us to call them the filthy sinners they are.” As a Christian, who just also happens to be a lesbian, I take offense at this continuing campaign on the religious right to promote this false dichotomy of gays vs. God. No one in the gay and lesbian community wants to curb anyone’s “religious freedom.”…
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…urn to the old paths.” He adds, “the Church needs to repent” and “begin to promote biblical manhood.” Of course, even the hardcore have to live in the marketplace of ideas. Jennifer Chancey has generated controversy with her views on women and voting. She told a newspaper during Matthew’s unsuccessful 2008 campaign for the Alabama Public Service Commission that she thought that while husbands and wives should talk about it, women should submit the…
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…In 1954, Senator Lyndon Johnson presented an amendment to Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3), which was subsequently adopted by Congress. The amendment defined nonprofit tax-exempt entities—including churches—as those “which [do] not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” During the recent election cycle, the…
Read More…olics in Alliance for the Common Good. According to a Faith in Public Life news release, the topics explored in the new survey include: • Candidate friendliness to religion • The impact of Sarah Palin’s nomination on evangelical voters • Support for a broader values agenda • Attitudes toward a common ground approach on abortion • Voting issue priorities • Beliefs about causes of the economic crisis Go here for complete results. ++++++++++ Rev. Moo…
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…monstrations, and other aggressive activities. So, what’s the relationship between people who actually believe that Jonah was swallowed by a whale and suicide bombings? The film doesn’t really make those connections, nor could it, because they don’t connect. The broader connections between belief and violence could have (and, I’d say, should have) been made, but it would have taken some much more careful consideration of the topic at hand. What Ma…
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…s Dover plaintiffs’ lead attorney Eric Rothschild acknowledged recently in New Science, “They are better camouflaged now.” But the phrases are also designed for another purpose—one that parents should find particularly disturbing. They want to close children’s minds to the wonders of science. For creationists to achieve this goal, alternative theories like intelligent design aren’t necessary. All that is needed to sway children is to plant seeds o…
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…, the repetition is easy to explain. They are locked up, they have nothing better to do, and they share only that one joke-book. But what explains the constant number-calling around homosexuality in so many American churches? Why do we rehearse arguments most anyone active in church has already heard dozens of time? Why do we behave like prisoners? I don’t think that long-term veterans of church debates have much hope that undecided people will be…
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…dy for some serious War on Culture…er…culture war. So there’s Christian as code-word for ‘evangelical.’ Like when Republican politicians say it. And there’s Christian meaning Protestant, as opposed to Catholic. And there’s Christian the way a missionary might mean it, (as opposed to heathen?). And there are those “anonymous Christians,” or involuntary Christians…was that Rahner who devised that category? Does anyone outside of seminary or grad sch…
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…hich he stated, referring to the capture of Somali warlord Osman Atto, ‘I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.’” According to Rodda, Mansfield said that “Gen. Boykin gave many in the field just the kind of warrior code they needed to fulfill their duties with moral passion.” In an extensive, and highly-documented, review of Mansfield’s Ten Tortured Words, Rodda, pointed out that the book was…
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…s as an attempt to destroy “the thick wall which we ourselves have erected between the transcendental world and the process of history, between ends and means.” Greenberg develops this idea—comparing Gandhi to the Buddhist ruler Asoka—and avoids any mention of Zionism. Rather, he sees Jewish religious parallels to Gandhi’s attempt to tie the spiritual to the political: Despite the long chronicle of suffering and humiliation in Jewish history, we…
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