Religion Dispatches
…Christian society and a form of religious politics that will make biblical code the law of the United States. These activists are quite serious about bringing Christian politics into power. Bray said that it is possible, under the right conditions, for a Christian revolution to sweep across the United States and bring in its wake Constitutional changes that would allow for biblical law to be the basis of social legislation. Failing that, Bray envi…
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…ybe society is to blame, but it’s hard to pin down any concrete connection between social conditions and a given act of terror; while social science identifies patterns, it can rarely tell us where the blame lies in any specific instance. In a recent essay for The Atlantic, criminologist Simon Cottee challenges the idea that we can ever fully understand why someone becomes a terrorist. “Everyone from clerics to caustic cab drivers seems to have a…
Read More…istian, denominations. A study by the Military Association of Atheist and Freethinkers (MAAF)—the group that put Bradley in contact with the ACLU—reported that nearly 97% of military chaplains are Christian (63% Evangelical), while Christian service members make up 70% of the population. Currently no Humanist or Atheist chaplains approved for military service, though MAAF reports that there are a number of Atheist and Humanist chaplain assistants…
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…rector of Communications for the Archdiocese, said that, as the court case between Hernandez and Birge is still pending, the church would not comment, but added that volunteers and lay leaders are subject to background checks, and that under no circumstances would an alleged aggressor be transferred to another church, as Hernandez had effectively been moved to Colorado Springs. In 2010, Birge added the Archdiocese as a co-defendant, arguing that t…
Read More…, New Hampshire, and Iowa) promoting a creationist film called The Genesis Code, and holding fundraising receptions. The moralistic film follows an unbelieving hockey player and a Christian journalism student who struggle with “reconciling their scientific studies and what’s taught in the Bible” as he falls for her and she uses their relationship to “guide” him “toward God.” You can read a “pro-family” review here that warns of sex (kissing) and n…
Read More…e behind, the Catholic League (i.e. Bill Donohue and a letterhead) will be free to focus on the crucial matter of the latest Dan “Da Vinci Code” Brown adaptation. As of this writing, we are still waiting for advance word on the subject of Obama’s graduation speech. As any professor can tell you, a college commencement address frequently falls into one of three genres. The first strives to inspire with insipid platitudes equal to the occasion. (“Yo…
Read More…es. “Deviant,” “diseased,” and other descriptors of sexual minorities were code words for homophobia and transphobia. Moving the discussion of Section 377 away from systemic inequality and toward the putative best interest of Indian society was emblematic of the right-wing attempt to erase sexual diversity. Although right-wing Prime Minister Narendra Modi has remained silent on Section 377 since his election campaign in 2014 (during hearings in Ju…
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…the question and was able to assure the public he would draw a bright line between his personal religious practice and his public duties. Flash forward nearly sixty years and such questions are being asked in a completely different context. Law schools like Ave Maria and Regent are literally training lawyers for the culture wars. The Hobby Lobby decision showed that an ascendant conservative-Catho-Christian legal establishment has flipped the defi…
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…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…ed Parenthood in which he promised to deliver, first thing, on getting the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) passed. For the religious right, FOCA is the devil’s bill, one which would codify reproductive freedom and dash their plans to shackle women to maternity wards. Obama started softening his pro-choice position in early 2008, when he was feeling the heat from the right’s virulent Jeremiah Wright smear campaign, and continued to do so throughout th…
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