Religion Dispatches
…nced that a movie would be more powerful in representing atheists than any number of books and speakers. You were at the national convention in Iowa. Some of the atheist speakers were pretty good, but you can’t compare any of them to a good preacher. I think atheism leaves out a whole emotional component from the argument. That’s wrong because some of the injury that religion causes is deeply emotional—children who have been killed in religious wa…
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…blic schools. Even now with these waves of voucher programs in states like Tennessee, the people receiving the vouchers are actually people who are already outside of the public school system. They’re going to the wealthy White folks who are already taking their kids out of public institutions, and now they’re just getting more money to subsidize that decision. Unfortunately, we keep talking about CRT and DEI reactively in the terms that are laid…
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…nservative Christian high school and conservative Baptist college, in west Tennessee, before we moved to Atlanta. These schools did not hesitate to offer religion-drenched graduation exercises. Prayers, music, symbols, and speakers all spoke a particularistic kind of evangelical and Baptist religious language. The schools had been organized by serious Christians to accomplish serious Christian purposes. The name of Jesus was often deployed, encour…
Read More…ield for felony crimes such as manslaughter,” while states like Oregon and Tennessee have abandoned similar statutes in recent years. The watchdog organization, Child-Friendly Faith Project, aims to protect children from what it calls “religious child maltreatment.” This includes sexual and other forms of abuse as well as medical neglect. The recent report on widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania indicates that this is…
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…the tutelage and oppression of demonic forces.” At the end of the dream, “number 45” (he never refers to Trump by name) comes to the command center and gives a “medal of freedom” to Sheets—“knowing of what had been done, that what had been accomplished was from the efforts of both.” This is interesting in light of the actual role of the Sheets brothers in facilitating the events of January 6th. Hood offers a slick mix of historical revisionism an…
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…s north of Waco, which is relevant to the following commentary—and in east Tennessee. And, with both a gubernatorial candidate and candidate for lieutenant governor attending their events, as well as their interactions with Trump, it’s worth looking into their beliefs. What follows is an annotated sermon of Pastor Sean’s from May 27, 2021, in the midst of a period of expansion, and while Mastriano, Daniels and others were actively courting their s…
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…up the legislative chambers in several others including South Carolina and Tennessee. While both Democratic candidates for the nomination have resoundingly criticized the latest round of anti-LGBT legislation, the Republican candidates have been largely silent. Ted Cruz remains a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage and has vowed to end it, as has Donald Trump, in spite of his endorsement by the Log Cabin Republicans. In contrast, John Kasich wan…
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…real story about social distancing. During an Easter service, he told his Tennessee congregation to “take them stupid masks off.” What do these individuals have in common? They are, in the first place, advocates for Christian nationalist ideas—meaning that they promote the myth that America is by origin and by right a Christian nation, that it’s lost its way at the hands of a militant secular elite, and that white Christians in particular are now…
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…ce John Scopes was convicted in 1925 of the crime of teaching evolution in Tennessee’s infamous Scopes Monkey Trial. But Epperson’s blow was only a flesh wound. Bible as Science Book Since Charles Darwin first put forth his idea of natural selection, the scientific community has viewed evolutionary theory as the unifying principle of biology. Among scientists, there is virtually no debate over its validity. And despite what religious fundamentalis…
Read More…a group of states—twenty-six, to be exact, including liberal bastions like Tennessee and Arkansas—and, in order to be implemented, it has to be approved by individual states, i.e., by the “local and state boards of education” that do, indeed, control our education system. The NGSS’s motto is “For states, by states,” and, you guessed it, it’s not even a federal program, as the lede implies, but an independent organization endorsed by such radically…
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