Religion Dispatches
…s and coverage that oppose what most American women understand to be their best interests. In this difficult position, the best Ann Romney could do was emphasize the relational model to which political wives are so often tethered. I remember that Michelle Obama did it in 2008, describing the moment when Barack drove his baby daughter home from the hospital, so we women would see him as someone to trust. It’s a model that leads women to that close,…
Read More…ose things. Thank you! I tried to be careful to not say that my way is the best way forward for anyone—atheist or not. Whenever someone decides they have discovered the best way and that other people should walk the same path, it’s a real turn-off. Atheist polemicists have done a lot to raise the visibility of atheists, but they haven’t made atheism all that attractive for many people and part of the reason why that is—fairly or unfairly—is that t…
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…incerity of purpose that cannot be ignored. I would argue that some of the best theology right now is being done by ethnomusicologists. Haynes’ feminist critique of Mars Hill is absolutely inspired and inspiring. Navigating the fine line reflects a certain theological or ethical stance as well. It’s an ambiguous set of practices. One does not simply borrow. One reflects one’s theological or ethical convictions in the process. In Secular Music and…
Read More…truce, let alone a real peace,” he writes, but his evidence is flimsy, at best. After acknowledging the mounting evidence that the religious right is losing its monolithic hard-line political stance on a host of issues, Steinfels rightly recalls that what was called the “culture wars,” beginning in the late 1960s, at first did not center on issues of religion. He notes that the issues currently dominating US political debate have little or nothin…
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…ublic forgets quickly, which means that there’s little incentive to create best practice plans and mechanisms for reducing the scale of disasters, since by election time no one is likely to remember. “Voters reward the delivery of disaster relief, but not investments in disaster preparedness,” the authors bleakly conclude. The problem is that most of us see disaster, and disaster response, through a narrative of melodrama. Melodrama is known for e…
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…ere is no middle ground.” Each year, one or two of her students challenge evolution in her class. She doesn’t engage with them. Instead, she suggests they meet after class for a cup of coffee, so they can discuss their religious beliefs. The best hope, she suggested, is for evangelicals who embrace science to live well and lead by setting the best example. “Hopefully we can let some of those people see, wow, that person really is a Christian,” Epp…
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…join in reflection and worship as well as meet, coordinate and plan how we best share our testimonies with other people of faith around the nation.” Strider even insisted that the Democrats, unlike You Know Who, grasp that faith without works is dead; he writes that the real story of Charlotte is of a “party that lives what it preaches.” Well, yes and no. It’s a party that gives Elizabeth Warren a microphone even as it dispatches Rahm Emanuel to…
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…bad behavior, but an opportunity to express love. According to Dobson, the best chance to communicate comes after an episode where the parent has physically hurt the child: For this reason, parents should not dread or shrink back from confrontations with their children. These occasions should be anticipated as important events, because they provide the opportunity to convey verbal and nonverbal messages to the boy or girl that cannot be expressed…
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…t establishes a comprehensive way of life that is held out as the right or best way of life for those who adhere to it.” The key term is “comprehensive.” CrossFit, football, Star Trek, and dieting fads are insufficiently comprehensive to count as religion. Linker, recognizing that his definition would encompass philosophy, distinguishes between them based on the source of their knowledge regarding the best way of life: “religion,” he claims, “is t…
Read More…ited for Israel and other Christian Zionist groups “the Jews’ and Israel’s best friends in the world,” also tried to blame liberals, not Messianic Jews, for challenges to Judaism. “For 40 years I have argued that Jews for Jesus pose little or no danger to Jewish survival,” Prager wrote. “We Jews should be preoccupied with all the Jews for Nothing, the Jews for anti-Zionism, the Jews for radical Leftism.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again h…
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