Religion Dispatches
…(or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. That’s all. No mention of God, no mention of anything more than the individual conscience. The power of such conscience, and the virtues this presupposes, were believed to be enough. In short, the Founders were as vigilant about keeping invocations of “God”…
Read More…o to close this loophole.” The anti-Adelson bill is like Israel’s Citizens United—in reverse. Although launched a few years before the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision, Israel Hayom is like a Citizens United effort, where a political advocacy group attempted (and ultimately succeeded) in circumventing campaign finance limits by portraying an anti-Hillary Clinton film as media subject to First Amendment protection, rather than independent political ex…
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…ly reported atrocities, adding: In late June, a contractor working for the United Nations witnessed Sudanese Army soldiers filling a grave with bodies and covering it with a bulldozer. The Sudanese Army, paramilitary forces and government security forces have also attacked the United Nations force itself, the report said, including the summary execution of a Sudanese staff member. The report, which was requested by the Security Council, recommends…
Read More…achieving its own mission of preparing Academy cadets to be the very best United States Air Force ocers possible, these very same Air Force Academy cadets and staff will still be consigned to hell unless they accept former Lt. McClary’s own version of Christianity. Such statements are not only antithetical to the clear mission of the United States Air Force Academy, they are totally anathema to the purportedly globally inclusive purpose of this…
Read More…seems strange at a synod on the family. None of the 16 experts is from the United States; 10 are from Europe (including five from Italy), three from Asia, and one each from Mexico, Lebanon and Australia. “There are more laypeople among the 38 auditors, including 14 married couples, of whom two are from the United States. Many of the observers are employees of the Catholic church or heads of Catholic organizations, including natural family planning…
Read More…state shrinks right up to nothing when liability lurks. In early 2014, the United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which monitors implementation of that Convention, questioned Vatican officials about sexual abuse perpetrated by Catholic clergy and its systematic cover-up by church officials. Former sex crimes prosecutor for the Church, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, in watershed testimony, admitted that the Vatican bore some respo…
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…of spirituality as goofy, metaphysical religion has a long history in the United States, reaching back beyond Mesmerism in the eighteenth century and moving forward through Spiritualism, New Thought, Theosophy and New Age spirituality. This type of spirituality, which is often concerned with the movement of energy, therapeutic practices, and the power of mind, seems to be rising in popularity in the United States as traditional religious affiliat…
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…r a common good? Social entrepreneur Shannon Hopkins has noted that in the United Kingdom, Christians often spearhead social enterprise ventures, and humanist collectives in the United States have created events like the Feast Conference 2009. Occasionally, one can find a convergence of the secular and spiritual. Several Christians involved with The Nomi Network invited me to a recent screening of the film Call + Response. It’s rare to see the fai…
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…nten season when we can cue up a series of Jesus films made outside of the United States, and by so doing realize the plurality of Jesuses—the ways Jesus might be seen outside the Hollywood-dominant framework. I here offer four takes on Jesus films; an updated gospel for the film age, a gospel account that takes into account the various takes on Jesus as prophet and priest, but also as liar, lunatic and/or lord. Indian Blockbuster Jesus Opening ou…
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…nd compassion for persons with HIV/AIDS, right? And moves like that of the United Church of Christ are better than their opposite—overt hostility toward persons with HIV/AIDS. But do they distract us from the illogic of religion? The hostility? The longterm negative consequences? Such questions are not relevant only for New York City. Why? New York’s interfaith work on HIV/AIDS is not the only setting in which (relatively progressive) religion ser…
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