Religion Dispatches
…dependence on oil which harms the earth when taken from it and when it is used. This does not make America any better stewards of what God has graciously given us. I have become an adult during your eight years as president, Mr. Bush. I watched your presidency closely and have renounced the politics many of my formative teachers and mentors taught me. I am one member of the generation Jim Wallis talks about that has had a “Great Awakening” and mo…
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…ly life), told me when the book came out: “I don’t like your book, not because it is not good enough, but because it is GOOD! Your book helps legitimize a way of life I deeply resent.” Leonard Plotnicov, editor of the journal Ethnology, whom I didn’t know at the time, wrote a most flattering blurb for the cover of my book. Leading gay/lesbian colleagues whom I also didn’t know at that time were supportive in reviews and comments (Ellen Lewin, Esth…
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…ulter, the fate of white men’s public integrity as a whole is at stake because of the “attack” on Kavanaugh. In the fevered imagination of the Coulters of the world, a Democratic, deep-state witch-hunt has declared open season on white men, and “any white male” can find himself roasting at the stake. Coulter’s injection of white patriarchal anxiety into the controversy is fitting because it speaks to the way the mainstream hijacking of #MeToo both…
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…et’s start with “sodomy.” It’s a Christian word, with a complex history of use and abuse in churches. Although it pretends to be biblical, it was in fact a theological coinage. The Genesis story about the city of Sodom is notably unclear about why its residents deserved divine destruction. Some readers conclude that the Sodomites wanted to rape visiting angels, but the prophet Ezekiel names the inhabitants’ crime as greedy, hard-hearted pride (see…
Read More…matters religious, although that does not seem to deter its adherents. Because the content of these statements is focused on a specific world religion, I believe that scholars and activists of many religions need to step forward in concrete, educational ways. Theologians must be among the first responders on this one. And we need to start at the beginning since Mr. Trump’s ignorance of the Muslim faith mirrors that of many Americans. “Islam” has b…
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…e. I have not been able to find reference to them in the criminal or civil code of Illinois, where the movie is set. I did learn that many EMTs in Chicago are employed by private companies, in which case such an employee would not be violating the establishment clause by proselytizing.) This is the movie’s big theological problem: a firm certainty that if it seems Christian to you, it probably is Christian, and is therefore a good thing in exactly…
Read More…SB-1433 is yet another data point suggesting that full legal rights for fetuses is a step too far even for many who consider themselves pro-life — precisely because of the possible unintended consequences. Perhaps the pro-choice cognate is the position which holds that nobody may ever raise a moral objection to any abortion ever, not even a theoretical abortion, and not even if that objection is offered with no attendant desire to legally enforce…
Read More…the second presidential campaign of the 21st century. Here, I think, is a better way to pose the question of the right relation between religion and politics as it relates to Obama’s long-suffering presidential candidacy. I propose the following as a sort of genealogy of the current confusion. 1) The two main political parties in the United States today are fairly loose coalitions, and since Reagan’s presidential victory in1980, the coalition tha…
Read More…scrutiny he’ll get for his marriage. Like politicians, having a devoted spouse is an important asset, especially for such a prominent minister with a worldwide following. Irreconcilable differences for many Christians is not reason enough for a divorce and, more often than not, is code for “serious sin.” Pentecostals have a history of being strict about reasons to divorce, adultery being scripturally the only reason to do so. For those who divorce…
Read More…rights commission was found to have acted without ‘the neutrality that the Free Exercise Clause requires’, the government actors in this case will not be held accountable for breaching the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious neutrality and tolerance.” In other cases, too, arguments about religious freedom are coming from unlikely quarters. In Arizona, a university teacher arrested for helping undocumented immigrants cross the southern border…
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