Religion Dispatches
…f science. On one of the many fronts in this battle, two sets of fundamentalists continue to duke it out: the New Atheists vs. the monotheistic literalists, led by the Christian Religious Right. This year’s news that one of the leading lights of New Atheism, Christopher Hitchens, has esophageal cancer did not tone down the war of words between the two camps about the existence of God, as well as what God should do about Hitchens’ cancer. Even thou…
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…is life must be better known, and this, along with Haley’s co-authored Autobigraphy of Malcolm X, is an excellent place to start. Tragically, Marable himself passed away only days before the publication of this bestselling work, but the impact it made—settling on the bestseller lists, for example—only underscores the scale of his scholarship, and the relevance it has to our world. Growing up, Haley’s Autobiography was profoundly influential in the…
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…t bishops were free to talk publicly about lists, as in: what is the right list of the New Testament books? We have a whole range of those lists—most of them leave the book of Revelation out. Eusebius’s Church History is the first such history we have. Eusebius, a bishop, is writing in about 325-340, right after Constantine became emperor and held the Council of Nicea. Eusebius makes a list of twenty-two recognized books, including the four gospel…
Read More…ased radio show, and annual conferences and engages in other activities to promote the dominionist views of its founder Gary DeMar, as well as those of one of its most well-known associates, Gary North, the son-in-law of Christian Reconstructionist founder R.J. Rushdoony, and a supporter of Ron Paul whose economic writings have also influenced Rand Paul. The goal is to return America to its Biblical foundations “from Genesis to Revelation” (a post…
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…think most deserve our attention right now in this political moment.” The list is quite long and includes some well known names like National Organization for Marriage leader Maggie Gallagher, radio host and American Family Association public policy director Bryan Fischer, Focus on the Family president Jim Daly, and supporter of Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill Lou Engle. The list also includes some prominent anti-gay African-American religious lead…
Read More…ar. (I say unilaterally because Elkhorn’s district guidelines specifically list Santa as secular symbol, while the memo places Santa on the “unacceptable” list.) Cases often get silly when courts are asked to rule whether a specific symbol denotes a state endorsement of religion. As law professor Jay Wexler wrote, “The endorsement test makes judges render decisions that are more like interior decorating than constitutional law.” In this case, the…
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…mputer [to] determine which [goals] were very similar. We would reduce the list further, and then start over with the reduced list, repeating the process until we came up with the 16 desires. From that 16, we can generate almost any goal. Your model offers some new conceptual resources, particularly for thinking about how people’s “strong” and “weak” strivings inform how they participate in religion. The 16 desires are shared by everybody. We all…
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…o women. There is also a bill in Parliament to revise the current criminal code, which was basically translated from the Dutch criminal code. The latest version apparently does have a sodomy article. So we actually face the criminalization of homosexual acts.” Somoa: Prime Minister Says ‘Christian Country’ Will Never OK Abortion, Same-Sex Marriage Prime Minister Tuilaepa Seilele Malielegaoi said in a radio interview that Samoa is a Christian count…
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…not conservatives but Muslims: The race is the next key test of the nationalist wave that led the UK to leave the EU and to the election of Donald Trump in the US. Some on the right have predicted — and some progressive LGBT activists are worried — that LGBT voters could help put politicians like Le Pen into office because they increasingly fear Muslim immigrants. Left-wing parties have been responsible for nearly every LGBT rights advance on the…
Read More…ammami, executive board member of the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists, publicly denounced homosexuality as “conduct contrary to nature,” while an article in the Adhamir journal claimed that a “majority” of Tunisians “reject” homosexuality. The homophobic abuse hasn’t stopped at journalistic rhetoric. Senda ben Jebara, deputy director of the Tunisian feminist LBT group Chouf told Front Line Defenders that a YouTube video published last w…
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