Religion Dispatches
…mployed workers for every new job opening. And as of last month the actual number of workers in crisis is not the 14 million who are officially unemployed (as if that number were acceptable), but more like 29 million people, if you count people no longer looking or working at sharply reduced hours or taking big pay and benefit cuts. That is 18 percent of the total workforce and still rising. What’s more, three-fourths of those losing work over the…
Read More…nod is to take up. The Supreme Pontiff may, if he so chooses, increase the number of members of the Synod of Bishops by adding bishops, or religious to represent the religious institutes, or clerics who are experts, to the extent of fifteen percent of the total number of the members mentioned in articles V and VIII. Despite this, Douthat assures us that “as a Catholic,” he expects “the plot to ultimately fail; where the pope and the historic faith…
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…her siblings also messaged us to say that they were being harassed via telephone, in person, and social media… Why would this be such big news in Nigeria? I believe it is because the press still wants to vilify gay men and women. They want to show that the USA is a place that corrupts the morals of children and is a den of sin and iniquity. The current political election probably isn’t helping change that impression much. The mere thought of two m…
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…d. Although Magufuli has not said anything publicly about homosexuality, a number of his appointees have made harsh remarks. Critics of gay rights say this nation — which has large numbers of Muslims and Christians — must protect traditional values. In an August speech, Paul Makonda, the regional commissioner of Dar es Salaam, the capital, threatened to arrest people who were linked to gay men on social-networking sites. “If there’s a homosexual w…
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…ments with deep suspicion and, in many cases, outright alarm. There were a number of reasons for this. Protestant ministers enjoyed close ties—social, political, financial, and more—to Chicago’s industrial elite, which predisposed them to be skeptical of trade unionism. In the turbulent 1870s and 1880s, as the rank and file, increasingly predominated by the foreign born, repeatedly took its protest to the streets, Protestant leaders called for vio…
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…people are by intensity, measured with the simple hack of subtracting the number of people Strongly Opposed to same-sex marriage from the number Strongly In Favor. Not surprisingly, since the Unitarian-Universalists only had 6 percent opposed, their position on the chart hardly budged at all. Other groups traveled a little more. Mainline Baptists, for example, strongly disapprove just a little more than they strongly approve. Evangelical Baptists…
Read More…been acquired, and dress rehearsals occurred, all with the complicity of a number of individuals. Unfortunately that cohort included my older sister Carolyn Layton and my younger sister Annie Moore (both of whom died in Jonestown). But quite a few others were part of the conspiracy as well, including the team of young men from Jonestown who ambushed Congressman Ryan and his party as they attempted to leave. Knowing the identities of the conspirato…
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…ican American communities a disservice and fails to consider why a growing number are shifting away from belief— a shift that is tied to a long history of African Americans challenging belief in God. This narrowing of African American’s opinions on belief misses an important point. “Free thought,” in a variety of forms, has a presence in African American life that is centuries old. To question or deny God is as African American as is embracing the…
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…, seven thousand black South Africans were killed under apartheid, and the number imprisoned was far higher. The Catholic Church neither kills nor imprisons ordained women and their supporters; excommunication, while painful, is not at all the same, even when financial losses accompany it. In 2007 I published an article in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion explaining in some detail why highly educated white women simply cannot say that t…
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…people of the Irish Republic described themselves as “Roman Catholic”. The number of atheists and agnostics and diverse other faiths was up too, but Roman Catholics remained the majority. However, it is evident, especially in Dublin, that nominal inscription to a religion is one thing, while actual practice is another. Red C’s survey only confirms what is obvious anecdotally: that a substantial number of Irish people have ditched the religion of t…
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