Religion Dispatches
…has upheld and every Democrat reversed, prohibits, by executive order, the use of U.S. family planning funds to NGOs abroad who use other funds to provide abortions or even referrals to abortion providers. It’s widely seen by reproductive health advocates, as Population Action International puts it, as “eroding family planning and reproductive health services in developing countries. There is no evidence that it has reduced the incidence of aborti…
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…dividual experiences of spirituality over rigid doctrinal statements. They use words like “seekers” rather than talking about lost or damned souls. They also tend to avoid rigid political platforms. If you walk through the multiple parking lots at Willow Creek, you can spot bumper stickers that span the political spectrum, and megachurch pastors have advised both Republican and Democratic presidents. Of course, all of this exists on a spectrum. So…
Read More…lestinians: This Christian version of Zionism matters deeply, not just because theology intrinsically matters, but because it is overwhelmingly clear that American evangelical-fundamentalist Christian Zionism affects US policy toward Israel and the Palestinians in distressing ways. It is one reason why the United States stands almost alone in the world community in supporting Israeli policies which our international friends generally find intolera…
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…tate officials have said they believe the policy to be illegal and will refuse to comply. On Tuesday, the news dropped that Texas officials had opened “child abuse” investigations into parents who support their children in accessing age-appropriate gender-affirming medical care. They started with a state CPS employee, referred to as “Jane Doe,” who has a 16-year-old transgender daughter (“Mary Doe”) and says she feels “betrayed by my state and the…
Read More…is claiming that it now has the votes of 43 House Democrats against the House health care reform bill, unless it adopts the provisions it seeks barring the use of federal funds for abortion. “[A]t last count, we have … commitments from about 43 members who said they would support Stupak and basically bring down the health care bill unless his amendment is offered,” DFL executive director Kristen Day told the conservative site CNSNews.com. Day cla…
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…, agency and voice. The Handmaid’s Tale series feels so relevant today because it focuses on the experiences of a woman living under an oppressive regime. When reproductive rights activists in Texas and Missouri staged protests wearing handmaid’s costumes, it was a chilling statement that the Gilead regime does not seem far-fetched but frighteningly familiar. Patricia Miller: I think it’s important to note that Atwood said she didn’t put anything…
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…ary American religious landscape, the problematizing of Black spirituality promotes what we call “slave-shaming.” The phrase is in quotes because technically there’s no such thing as a “slave.” From antiquity the label of “slave” was used to designate people as “things” (i.e. the living property of another). But no human being is merely a thing; to call someone a “slave” was a way of denigrating their full humanity. On the societal level, this den…
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…entioned the importance of personal responsibility, urging the poor not to use poverty as an excuse. But Obama does not treat social problems primarily as individual faults the way “compassionate conservatism” does. He treats them as political problems. His record is not in urging spiritual reform, as Bush’s was when he ran for president. Obama’s record is in organizing in churches, helping people see that their problems come from systemic abuse b…
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…the state or federal government to ensure that taxpayer money isn’t being used to promote a sectarian religious agenda. Dena Sher, legislative counsel at the ACLU, also said the Charitable Choice regulations are inadequate when it comes to the rights of beneficiaries to be free of sectarian religious messages. “The conditions that [clients] are put in afford an opportunity for these organizations to engage in prayer, or worship, or proselytizing,…
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…broken by the death of innocent civilians, but that Hamas is to blame” because it uses civilians as human shields. Some have even said civilians who voted for Hamas can be legitimate military targets. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish denomination in North America, told me the “overwhelming sense of our movement is support for Israel and [for] the military response in the face of these tunnels,” refer…
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