Religion Dispatches
…nce “same-sex attraction” or “same-gender attraction,” while adhering to a code of morality that forbids all sexual contact outside the bounds of heterosexual marriage. Others claim and openly affirm a gay identity while carefully negotiating a path to maintaining church activity and membership. All of these paths entail profound risks, costs, and consequences. All require a level of conscious deliberation on matters of sexuality and spirituality…
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…t states or localities—determined if new states to the union were slave or free. Holding that it is the job of federal government to give the ordinary guy a “square deal,” T.R, as he was called, broke up the monopolies, including the railroads and Standard Oil. He used federal power to bring forty anti-trust suits and established federal controls over food, drugs, and rail rates. He set up the US Forest Service and brought 230,000,000 acres of lan…
Read More…dent Obama to Pharaoh, appeared via videotape at the inaugural Freedom Federation conference last year at Liberty University, saying, “we know you love us and want to commend you for unconditional support for state of Israel,” adding that “Christians and Jews share the same future.” That’s code not only for no state for the Palestinians, but a perpetuation of illegal settlements and purging of Palestinians from occupied land. For Danon, Hagee, and…
Read More…aid: “I’m not familiar precisely with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said whatever it was.” No, that wasn’t mistranscribed. He said that. If there’s ever been a perfect encapsulation of Romney as a candidate, there it is. Here’s what Romney was referring to—or not remembering precisely or exactly. As reported by Politico yesterday, in February, during a Romney appearance on his show, Hannity played a clip of an Obama speech in which th…
Read More…cceed. Now, it has taken all these years for many Americans to understand that that gravity, that mistake, took place before the Civil War and why the Civil War had to really start changing America. What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back to before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin. Why are we allowing our country to move backwards instead of moving forward with that understanding that as…
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….” Sometimes this fear drives people to homicidal and suicidal mania or to hateful, divisive speech that violates people’s emotional and psychological wellness. In the New Testament, an early Christian writer explored the ethical consequences of hospitality: Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it (Hebrews 13:1-2). In this passage, the Greek word t…
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…f rapture. The Edge’s epic guitar riff complements the moment. ESPN knows what that threaded riff does to people like me when accompanying emotionally piqued football highlights. Over the top of that, the pop prophet Bono speaks: “If history means anything, the world as we know it is about to change.” Melodrama? Maybe, but so are many of the Episcopal Masses that I’ve attended. One of the things that make this quadrennial tournament religious is t…
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…than act as an usher or sit on a church governing body. Moreover, my child hates church, almost as much as he hates vegetables, and I cannot readily explain to him why he has to go when I myself would rather not. Does this make me completely lame? Perhaps. It is certainly true, at least from a certain perspective, that it is easier to stay home on Sunday mornings (or Friday or Saturday evenings, as the case may be) than to go listen to the bland p…
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…ically and presently occur around the world. The reality of the matter is that what we see in religious studies classes across the United States is the great variety of manners in which religions happen in and through their rituals and practices, through their symbolic and communal exchanges, and, yes, in light of and sometimes in spite of their in-the-head beliefs. Two of the more usefully analytic definitions of religion that I offer my students…
Read More…. (Never mind America’s long national history with sexualized bondage in the form of slavery.) And what about secret paganistic societies with odd behind-closed-doors rituals? That too is classic Americana—just as American as the Freemasons. What really breaks the good Christian folks code of conduct is not engaging in questionable behavior but rather exposing the indiscretions of other good Christian folks, especially after they get established a…
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