Religion Dispatches
…alk and don’t vote, lack self-awareness, and don’t have opinions on public policy that affects them. Okay, what if—just for grins, because obviously what I’m about to say is total science-fiction territory—we imagine that there’s, I don’t know, a REALLY WEIRD species of caterpillar that votes, thinks, talks, forms opinions on policy, has legal rights, is self-aware, and… uh… is actually a person? And what if a significant number of these mythical…
Read More…how one male evangelist thinks the best way for women to influence public policy is by feeling bad and by not eating. Lou Engle’s “Esther Call” will be finishing in Dallas, Texas today on Good Friday. The “mass event […] focuses on God’s forgiveness for those who have been involved in abortion […and calls on] viewers to pray for an end to the bloodshed of innocent lives.” Along with co-leader Laura Allred, Engle has called on women to repent for…
Read More…orld Vision.” The letter explained that the change in the employee conduct policy reflects the reality of its engagement with Christian denominations which “in recent years have sanctioned same-sex marriage for Christians.” In an interview with Christianity Today, World Vision’s U.S. president Richard Sterns affirmed the group’s commitment to traditional Christian values, including sexual abstinence outside of marriage, but the employment policy c…
Read More…duce, the more a religious entity can, over the long haul, move government policy in one direction. Founder of Seattle’s Mars Hill megachurch Mark Driscoll, whom Sandler wrote about in a previous book, said, “We are in a city with less children per capita than any city but San Francisco….and we consider it our personal mission to turn that around.” What that means for the women in his church, who are instructed to assume a “submissive” role within…
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…rums? No, the larger question for me—and the one where religion and public policy come to the fore—is why one would take the risk of such an outcome? Perhaps the Santorums never imagined that Karen, in her late 40s, like the biblical Sarah, could conceive at all? Quite possibly. Then, once conceived, the child could be none other than “God’s gift,” entailing all the “sacrifice” that the Santorums have lavished on Isabella. Of course, in today’s pu…
Read More…ng with the Middle East issues, or is the candidate too new to the foreign policy arena? In light of yesterday’s terrorist attack on a Jerusalem synagogue, Nance, in a statement, calls Israel a “cornerstone” for the 2016 presidential nomination, adding, “continued violence in Israel and constant turmoil in the Middle East makes a clear and comprehensive foreign policy agenda a must for any potential conservative presidential candidate.” Concerned…
Read More…elcome the stranger; Nathan noted how the push for immigration reform “has united the religious community, even for those of us who consider ourselves conservatives.” Many of those conservatives, though, support immigration reform, but not for gay and lesbian people. The Democratic Party was criticized after the midterms for, critics charged, punting on reaching out to “people of faith.” But whose faith, and what issues, deserve attention or empha…
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…tion-wide broadcasts to the hard fake journalism of “news” reduced to a competitive entertainment business, this trend represents both a threat to democracy—which requires a populace informed about facts and united despite ideological differences—and basic morality—which requires awareness of a real world outside one’s own experience, recognition of others living in that world, and empathy for their experiences. Devotion to Saint David of Begnaud…
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…one that also meshes with Tea Party rhetoric—the Fed’s control of monetary policy is a prime example of federal government “tyranny.” North argues that the Federal Reserve is unbiblical because it usurps power not legitimately held by civil government (because God didn’t grant it) and it promotes inflation, which he says is nothing more than theft from those who are not in debt in favor of those who are. Many of North’s works are popularly accessi…
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…how discourses of contagion might be influencing and shaping public health policy during this historic outbreak. Fears of Jewish contagion have a very long and complicated history with public health and have, at times, played a dominant role in shaping American history and politics. Louis Harap, in The Image of the Jew in American Literature traces the installation of social distancing measures against Jewish contagion to the colonial period. Duri…
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