Religion Dispatches
…merica’s acceptance of the second coming of Christ. In this context, it is significant today that in some parts of the United States, over one-third of the opponents of the policies of President Barack Obama believe he is the Antichrist as characterized in the End-Times Rapture scenario. The Christian anti-abortion movement is permeated with ideas from Dominion Theology. Randall Terry (founder of the militant anti-abortion organization Operation R…
Read More
…to make sure this predator was not around children. No one challenged the code of deference to those higher up and obedience to the rule of secrecy. Now we have “the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in Church history,” declares the National Catholic Reporter in an editorial. The New York Times, which broke the story of abuse at the deaf school in Wisconsin, quotes a priest in Berlin as saying the crisis is “the worst in 100 yea…
Read More
…Lemon test,” said Steve Newton. The hot-button issues of human cloning (a code word for abortion, Newton says) and global warming are linked to increase the appearance of evolution’s controversy. Fostering Fear of Science The science blog Denialism has a list of themes used in the global warming debate that have been similarly deployed in intelligent design battles: Well-funded think tanks are capable of derailing a scientific consensus, in this…
Read More
…port NIF, which promotes on-the-ground change. But the attack by Im Tirtzu signals an end to business as usual. Following the Money Im Tirtzu calls itself a centrist organization that wants to strengthen political Zionism. But according to an investigative report by Ha’aretz, the movement is funded by right-wing groups and individuals, including John Hagee, the controversial Texas minister whose endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Joh…
Read More…tals and so forth. So if one had to bring Boudway’s original analogy up to code, one would have to say this: Imagine you live in a country where the default way to buy food is buying it from your employer. You get a job, and your employer negotiates with companies who in turn have agreements with grocery stores and growers, shipping companies and meat processing plants, and so on. The end result of all this is that you get a card, which you presen…
Read More
…a sentence, and then give some paragraphs of support to back it up. The assignment has no singular answer, of course; I’m looking for their ability to think coherently and offer support for their ideas. This is something at which Maher and cohorts would mostly succeed. But I’m also looking for my students to do a little reflection on their own assumptions about what religion is and does, to do a little research, and to think about the variety of…
Read More
…in 100 years.” It isn’t a stretch to say that his invocation of “truth” is code for conservative Christian dogma; his real problem with Harvard—and academia in general—is that its scholars do not defer to such dogma. But there’s no need to stretch as Santorum explicitly linked higher education to the work of Satan in a 2008 speech (which has recently gone viral) at Florida’s Ave Maria University. The intimate connection between these views and his…
Read More
…d, Archbishop Ignatius Ayau Kaigama’s 2014 letter to Goodluck Jonathan for signing the harsh anti-gay legislation included this: We commend you for this courageous and wise decision and pray that God will continue to bless, guide and protect you and your administration against the conspiracy of the developed world to make our country and continent, the dumping ground for the promotion of all immoral practices, that have continued to debase the pur…
Read More
…’s a safe place to be.” Likewise, the church can be a safe place to meet a significant other. “In the back of a lot people’s heads, they know this [congregation] has a group of people who could potentially be great matches,” says Jason Semko, a long-time YMA member. “There are a lot of high-quality people here, and the great thing is that you can get to know them as friends first.” Religion serves as a filtering mechanism for many singles. About h…
Read More
…sts are founders of “Let’s Protect Our Children,” a group that sponsored a signature drive promoting a referendum against “gay propaganda.” Another group, “Family,” also backed the referendum campaign and warns against “genderism.” Taiwan: Marriage Equality Opponents Push Referendum The Central Election Commission held a hearing on Thursday on a referendum proposed by marriage equality opponents that would require marriage equality or custody legi…
Read More