Religion Dispatches
…ed or reprinted. In order to make these letters accessible to the widest audience possible, my book is going have an openly accessible born-digital component, which will be built as part of a collaborative, larger project undertaken by the Black Press Research Collective….
Read More…Ben Smith who went on a shooting spree in three different cities where he killed a number of African Americans and Jews and Asians that day. Those groups are groups that claim to be extremely anti-government and Christian identity oriented. Southers was not talking about ordinary churchgoers, but rather about the radical far right, described in the FBI’s Project Megiddo report as “a vast number and variety of groups, such as survivalists, militias…
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…o other God, no one should make idols to worship. While some Protestants still rail at Catholics and Orthodox Christians for veneration of their icons and statues, the image of Jesus on the cross is ubiquitous in most churches. Islam as a strict monotheism rejects the worship of any other gods, but modern Muslims are no less interested in visual art and photography than their Jewish and Christian counterparts. The Danish cartoons, like The Satanic…
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…dogmatic, single-minded, and loaded with oppositional fervor.” This leads Silverman to make some wildly inaccurate claims. He argues that more than half of Jews and three-quarters of the rapidly growing religiously unaffiliated are atheists. But according to Pew, only 17% of Jews and 33% of the “nones” say they don’t believe in God. If you want to count the “don’t knows” or “others,” that gets to about 20% and 40%, respectively, at best. These are…
Read More…global military super-power called the Roman Empire, and they had lots of military propaganda convincing people of its noble intentions while it went around the world basically crushing everybody in its path. And these first Christians took that military propaganda of a good news, of another city that Caesar had vanquished, and they used it to talk about Jesus, who they believed was the true Lord, who said there’s a better way to be in the world a…
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…s often threaten to withhold funds, and parents may refuse to send their children if the schools fail to toe the line—the likelihood of effecting positive change through external pressure is minimal. The Hawkins case at Wheaton may yet prove to be the exception to the rule, as a number of insiders are holding out hope that she will be reinstated. Perhaps there’s even a slight chance of a broader reversal. But whatever the outcome for Hawkins, the…
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…dings with the 11 subjects (from page 1555, see below). Bussee was subject number two and Cooper was number one. Both Bussee and Cooper were rated as Kinsey 6 (exclusively homosexual) before change and a 0 (exclusively heterosexual) after change. Since there was no follow-up, this study has been used to support the proposition that gays could change to straight via religious mediation. For instance, not knowing any of this background at the time,…
Read More…dus etc as they are considered allies against the Global Islamic Ummah.” While Breivik wants to ban race-mixing and limit the number of non-Europeans in his future Europe, he is quite happy to offer assistance “to our Buddhist and Hindu brothers if they request our help against Jihadi attacks or campaigns.” In the end, as long as everyone stays within their own ethno-religious territory, all is well. Fences make good neighbors in the wake of the c…
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…nsequences of his leadership have been horrific, even beyond last week’s chilling statement. The OCA has failed, for example, to offer a strident condemnation of Vladimir Putin or Patriarch Kirill in light of the invasion of Ukraine. This is in no small part, I would posit, because at least some of the leadership of the OCA might very well accept Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill’s absurd assertions that the invasion of Ukraine is necessary to p…
Read More…in Graham’s claim about Obama being “born to a Muslim father” has been repeatedly debunked: Although he was born to a Muslim father, his father renounced his faith. To be a Muslim is not a legal status that is transmitted by birth, like Judaism is confirmed through the mother. A child can be raised as a Muslim, but still renounce the faith when she reaches the age of comprehension without penalty. To be a Muslim is a voluntary act that must be tak…
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