Religion Dispatches
…tinctly unhelpful. So to be specific, Crouch says this: We at Christianity Today believe Christians are absolutely free to use marijuana (where legalized). And, when it comes to pot in our particular cultural context, we think it would be foolish to use that freedom. For the CT editors, the moral quality of marijuana use seems to depend entirely upon the “cultural context” in which it occurs. And since our particular context is not conducive to ma…
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…hurch and community organizing in which we live. Progressive Christianity today, by whatever name, is characterized by an ethos of egalitarian civility that makes it allergic to developing strong leaders. It works in a coalitional style and speaks in the voice of an improvisational ensemble, or as James Wind says, an always-evolving chorus. We don’t want anyone to presume to lead us or speak for us, and we tend to be reticent about our faith. On…
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…debt peonage in his time and place. Stefani McDade begins her Christianity Today roundup of evangelical responses by reporting on the top four Bible verses being cited by online Christian commentators in response to Biden’s move. The top four verses popping up on her screen were all from the Hebrew Bible—or the Old Testament as CT prefers to call it. Then McDade cites the reactions of three guys. The first, an Anglican priest from Indiana, is all…
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…he state is responsible.” A few evangelical voices, including Christianity Today, questioned the ruling, although the magazine published an editorial three years later entitled “Is Abortion a Catholic Issue?” That editorial affirmed the general principle of right to life but concluded: “There are, of course, other considerations, such as the rights of the parents and the much-debated question of when life begins.” The overwhelming response to Roe…
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…symposium participants clarified in an accompanying issue of Christianity Today: “God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed. The Law plainly exacts: ‘If a man kills any human life he will be put to death’ (Lev. 24:17). But according to Exodus 21:22–24, the destruction of the fetus is not a capital offense… Clearly, then, in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul.” A 1967 issue of the…
Read More…—something the study unequivocally does NOT provide. In fact, Christianity Today gave him a perfect opening to tell people to stop misrepresenting his findings, and he ducked it: What would you say to religious and political groups that promote traditional marriage and want to use the NFSS results to “prove” that parenting by same-sex couples is damaging to children? I am neither a theologian nor politically oriented, so I wouldn’t presume to tell…
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…eadline called him an “Apostle of Bible-Based Economics,” and Christianity Today declared that North “Saw Austrian Economics in the Bible and Disaster on the Horizon.” All true. But both obits made little assessment of the political and theological significance of his life and prodigious work as an author, editor, publisher and back room political strategist. Let’s see if we can help. The 1976 election featuring professing evangelical Christian Ji…
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…y can expect “abortion, depression, and a string of failed relationships.” Today’s women are woody-killers because they’re just too much like men. They are assertive, thanks to education and career training. They masturbate. They are surprisingly not turned on (quo) by their partners doing dishes (quid). They are, in short, nasty. It was entirely unrealistic to expect “that the financial independence of women would have wholly positive effects on…
Read More…presents the far extreme wing of religious conservative views on evolution today; many other conservative Christians find ways of reconciling the findings of evolutionary science with traditional biblical truth, distressing to Ham as this may be. What unites Ham with the other religious conservatives today is the same kind of Biblicism that united the religious conservatives a century ago: since the bible is indeed the Word of God, the refuge amid…
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…Apostle and Prophet Ezra Taft Benson, who continues to be read and re-read today. A tireless anti-Communist crusader and admirer of the John Birch Society, Benson’s packaging of the message parallels Skousen’s right down to the racial affronts (he claimed that the civil rights movement was a “tool of Communist deception”). And while the Church could distance itself from Skousen, it could not (and still cannot) from Benson. Moreover, Benson’s jerem…
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