Religion Dispatches
…ion and, intriguingly, that he “adds to that diversity,” which is probably code for a less-than-orthodox approach to the faith. Huntsman is helped also by the fact that whereas Mormonism may be the most intriguing thing about candidate Romney, candidate Huntsman plays rock-and-roll and rides motorcycles. 3. He needs to show well in New Hampshire, but it’s South Carolina he is banking on. His campaign team is already heavy with recycled McCain pers…
Read More…ed view of the shari’ah “threat,” saying that he opposed a shari’ah “legal code” but stopped short of a full-on endorsement of shari’ah law bans. (That said, Reed does indeed understand his audience, and its fears.) The composition of the Faith and Freedom panel led me to believe he might have been attempting if not a rapprochement, then at least some balance. Ironically enough, the panel followed one on alleged anti-evangelical bigotry, though fe…
Read More…s, listening to speeches at the League of Women Voters, demonstrating with Code Pink and Le Front Des Lesbiennes Radicales, and generally gathering with other women to no good end. Now, I actually was there when the original plot was hatched, funnily enough: It was back in 1973, at the Women’s Exchange tea room in Eugene, Oregon. (To the public, it was billed as a Missionary Society presentation.) We had just finished singing a song about the weav…
Read More…about race; Edwards said that frequently progressives speak “in their own code,” which “sends people away” rather than “draw[ing] them in.” She added, “I want to make sure we’re using language to draw people in who share the same concerns about declining jobs and opportunity.” Edwards was reacting to someone in the audience bringing up the term “white privilege;” Edwards, who is African-American, cautioned that when people of color use that termi…
Read More…areers for women; and reforming the media such that 1950s gender norms are promoted and “sex and the city lifestyles” are discouraged. He claims the only other alternative to these “reforms,” which he acknowledges are restrictions on women’s rights, is “the creation of a network of surrogacy facilities in low cost countries and basically ‘outsource breeding,’” with the state as foster parent because “career obsessed” women would not prioritize car…
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…sociation in 2002 for violations of six different provisions of its ethics code, including provisions that prohibit counselors from “seek[ing] to meet their personal needs at the expense of clients,” taking advantage of the “trust and dependency of clients,” and deceptive promotion of products. At Wyler’s Arizona retreat, I was introduced to that healing touch therapy: I sat on the floor between the outstretched legs of a camp guide, my head leani…
Read More…cannot do within the guidelines of the IRS rules. He cited the part of the code that prohibits influencing legislation and labeled it “legalese,” before a lengthy parsing of what counts as legislation and then what counts as influencing— none of which substantially departed from everyday understanding of those terms. The talk sounded much like the “word study” sermon style found in many fundamentalist churches. He was careful to clarify that wheth…
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…me that Jewish homosexuals today are far less emotionally stressed by the code that ruled out the possibility of being both Jewish and gay. Even among some Orthodox Jewish communities the issue is being addressed—though not yet resolved. I love your notion of “layered ethnographies”—in which you add to prior ethnographies rather than amend them. So, the ethnography of CBST includes the first and second editions of your book as well as subsequent…
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…ooled by Santorum’s defense that he believes Obama when the president says he’s a Christian. Listen to the world salad Santorum and Stewart dropped onto the national airwaves. Anyone steeped in the “Christian worldview” (including Stewart’s old boss Bachmann) would fully understand that code as “Obama doesn’t govern from a ‘Christian worldview.’ And you know what that means: he must be a secularist, or an Islamist, or some other enemy of Christian…
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…l’s frustration with people who might use “spiritual but not religious” as code for “I don’t really think about religion at all because it’s boring or difficult or irrelevant to my pursuit of self-interest.” One statistician of religion suggests that America is well on its way to becoming a nation of “310 million people with 310 million religions,” each tailor-made to suit themselves. As someone who has made a career out of the life of the mind, a…
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