Religion Dispatches
…n’t seem to realize that the kinds of same-sex relations that are going on today are not like same-sex relations at other times in human history. There were always people of the same sex having sexual relations, but today there are new claims. It’s like our proposals for more equality in marriage over and against the patriarchal marriage of the past. Same-sex couples are making claims as families and asking for thing like marriage. Same-sex Muslim…
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…of things. And when I was about to turn 40, I became interested in health promotion and disease prevention from a personal standpoint. As I read recommendations regarding health promotion and good healthy forms of living, it occurred to me that we were in fact reinventing the wheel. All these recommendations and so forth seem to be reiterations of how people were living before agriculture. And then it occurred to me that our genetics have changed…
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…tian lives saved by this groundbreaking book,” comments Christian Feminism Today on its website. An earlier book, Women, Men, and the Bible, attracted widespread attention in 1977, giving hope to women raised in conservative denominations that required women’s submission to men. Mollenkott spoke at two of the first conferences of evangelical feminists: one in 1973 at Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver and another in 1975 to the newly founded E…
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…r now ending — a response much too fixated on the epiphenomenon, as though today’s naked expressions of white nationalism can somehow be separated from the longer career of white supremacy. Making a show of their ethical colors, liberal faith leaders have organized and participated in routinized rituals of personal purification that do absolutely nothing to make the slightest dent in structural oppression. Not all, of course: to say that would be…
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…Apostle and Prophet Ezra Taft Benson, who continues to be read and re-read today. A tireless anti-Communist crusader and admirer of the John Birch Society, Benson’s packaging of the message parallels Skousen’s right down to the racial affronts (he claimed that the civil rights movement was a “tool of Communist deception”). And while the Church could distance itself from Skousen, it could not (and still cannot) from Benson. Moreover, Benson’s jerem…
Read More…eria was Egypt’s fate, or whether something worse is around the corner. In Today’s Zaman, I argued that Pakistan might be the more operative analogy. With weapons flowing in from Qaddafi’s looted cache, plus an army that according to Wikileaks is “no longer capable of combat,” it’s unclear how said military can secure the country, regain control of the Sinai—a thousand times harder after what happened yesterday—or hold its end of the bargain up wi…
Read More…other laws – especially regarding harassment – outside abortion clinics.” Today’s decision is limited to the 2007 Massachusetts law, and may not invalidate every buffer zone law currently on the books or that could be enacted in the future. The ruling leaves in place a 2000 decision upholding a Colorado law that imposed a 100 foot buffer zone outside all health care facilities, barring people from coming within eight feet of visitors to counsel t…
Read More…terms like “Obamosque?” Or this photograph on the Special Guests website? Today Special Guests is also promoting the special guest of Scott Wheeler, a long-time operative of right-wing smear campaigns against Democratic candidates and office-holders. Wheeler is the executive director of the National Republican Trust PAC, which during the 2008 presidential campaign ran incendiary ads attempting to link Obama to terrorism. He’s a veteran of other e…
Read More…theist is criticizing her for the wrong reasons.) This week, in advance of today’s Georgetown speech, Ryan received a letter from 90 professors, led by Georgetown’s Thomas Reese, S.J., telling him “your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love.” In respo…
Read More…itted same-sex couples to prepare to complete marriage license paperwork. “Today justice won out,” said Samuel M. Chu, Executive Director of California Faith for Equality. “Today’s decision by US District Court Judge Vaughn Walker to overturn Prop 8 and lift the stay on same gender marriages in the state of California on August 18th is a giant step toward equality. “The Supreme Court has affirmed that marriage is a fundamental right. Justice Walke…
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