Religion Dispatches
…alist, performance artist, and mad scientist would all fit as well. In his latest work lies an invitation for not just cloistered specialists, but anyone and everyone, to participate. It used to be the exclusive domain of men of leisure to pursue God or science or art because they alone had the necessary combination of time and education, Keats argues, but now most people in the modern world have a modicum of both. Yet Keats, 39 years old, feels t…
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…hose who are marginalized and we are saddened by the effects the Vatican’s latest pronouncement has on the LGBTQ+ community…When one of us is marginalized the entire human family is diminished.” The Institute Leadership Team of the Sister of Mercy was equally strong: “…we are disheartened to read the recent declaration from the Vatican refusing to allow the blessing of same-sex loving people in committed relationships. We know and love many of the…
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…ect, both of which appeared during the 2012 presidential campaign. In this latest essay she takes stock of evangelical voting trends in the election—79% of white evangelicals voted for Mitt Romney—and seeks to persuade us, in spite of this rather homogeneous voting pattern, that they are not as monolithic as we might think. It’s true, of course, that the measure of a person’s religious and political beliefs is more complex than how she pulled the…
Read More…orms of racial discrimination. As philosopher Eddie Glaude suggests in his latest book In A Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and Politics of Black America, we must move beyond traditional vocabularies of struggle in order to assess and offset contemporary and complicated modes of racial injustice. In a post-Obama era, we cannot allow the protest language of those who lived in a segregated society to conceptually flatten or intellectually seize the creati…
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…oth nor rust doth corrupt. Hume Exhumed It is not just the details of this latest (preemptive) deathbed conversion story that are dubious, but the assumptions on which the entire genre operates. I have never understood how it counts as an endorsement of a belief that someone would embrace it just as he is falling apart, that the real or made-up judgments of a Darwin or Flew carry more weight to the extent that their minds are addled by disease, fa…
Read More…d evangelical Christian activists that a Fujimori administration would not promote civil unions or adoption rights for same-sex couples, and would oppose abortion except to save a woman’s life. Fujimori “signed a letter of commitment” pledging to defend the family and reject civil unions, gay marriage, and adoption by same-sex couples. Peru Reports noted that her comments around to backtracking from pro-civil-union comments she made while visiting…
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…as a heretic. Sound familiar? No, this isn’t the story of Rob Bell, whose latest book Love Wins remains among the top 10 bestsellers on Amazon.com. The flurry of voices condemning and congratulating him continues unabated, driving up sales and raising Bell’s profile [Listen to Rob Bell discuss hell and the controversy here]. This is the story of Carlton Pearson, an African-American minister trained by the famous Pentecostal televangelist Oral Rob…
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…aims it no longer wants to require the teaching of intelligent design, its latest book, Intelligent Design 101, champions just that: If future courts recognize the many flaws in the Kitzmiller ruling, it may fare better in the courts and the classrooms. Such a scenario, balancing design and chance rationales for the origins of the universe and life, should be proposed in school boards, taught in public school classrooms, and presented in legislati…
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…abortion activism (which the prior article actually does include). In this latest article, however, we learn a new detail about Roeder that might account for his crime—namely a recent, newly developed pattern of erratic behavior. The Friday before he killed Dr. Tiller, Roeder invited his 22-year-old son to go to dinner and a movie; which was odd for him, claims his ex-wife, because Roeder normally celebrated the Sabbath beginning at dusk every Fri…
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…er U.S. population into the much-debated “nones” category according to the latest Pew Religion Survey, is they view religion as simply not important. Part of that is the lack of political will so many of their religious leaders display especially when it comes to taking on someone with Trump’s vast financial resources. Lukewarm responses, Christians are fond of telling us, will bring the most feared of responses: being spit out for lack of steel t…
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