Religion Dispatches
…to a veritable boom in the quarrying industry were that still the practice today). The same for homosexuals. And the biblical conditions for divorce are so strict that a woman could be beaten within an inch of her life and still not be allowed to legally separate. The point is that nobody in the mainstream Christian church today would argue any of these propositions. A hundred years ago, that was not necessarily the case. In other words, the defin…
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…ch on Washington, has endorsed the use of her uncle’s name, insisting that today he would be called a “social conservative.” In fact, King strongly supported Planned Parenthood and was awarded the Margaret Sanger Award in 1966. King’s thoughts on war, peace, justice, community, civil rights, and religion sound quite unlike those who quote him today but opposed him then (or would have if they were alive). The struggle continues to keep King’s drive…
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…rly corrupted and colonized Christianity—play a crucial role in validating today’s white power machinations. This form of Christianity becomes especially and conveniently valuable in a culture that has always depended on violent domination when other means of domination fail. Its theology, such as it is, centers on violence and suffering as redemptive. The keynote here is regeneration through blood, or Jesus and John Wayne, as Kristin Kobes Du Mez…
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…d), and the KKK unleashed verbal attacks on Catholics in the 20th century. Today, public suspicion of Catholics is less overt, but still present, and sometimes that takes the form of attacks on the pope. In addition, the current pope’s reluctance to identify too closely with culture warriors on the right has brought even more criticism making it more difficult to identify the roots of the pope’s critics. Brietbart bemoaned Francis’ failure to “fig…
Read More…xposure of abortion would spark a civil rights movement for fetuses. Smith today added some language that makes quite clear that he’s envisioning fetuses as a protected class, much like age, race, religion, gender, or disability. From his statement: [L]ast week, with full and unequivocal support of Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, more than 165 members of Congress joined Dan Lipinski and I [sic] to introduce the No Taxpayer Fu…
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…nationalism dates back to the pilgrims, my series examines how features of today’s God-and-country ideology owe a particular debt to the obsessions that transfixed the popular culture of Britain in the 1890s: the supposed “hordes” of immigrants diluting the nation’s racial stock; melancholy over the putative “weakness” of a once-great nation; panic over non-straight public expressions of sexuality; a sci-fi tinged apocalypticism, in which heroes a…
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…y reading them outside academia? The popular discussion about antisemitism today is sorely under-theorized. I just read an excellent new book, still in manuscript, by a young scholar on middle-brow Jewish writing in the mid 20th Century. One of the things she shows is that from 1945 to the early 1960s there were dozens of books written by rabbis and Jewish scholars about basic Judaism, such as Milton Steinberg’s Basic Judaism or Irving Howe’s Worl…
Read More…ent receive far too little attention). Lekus notes that recent progress in promoting LGBT human rights in Cuba “reflect a marked shift from the early history of sexuality & gender in revolutionary Cuba,” citing state persecution, including labor camps and expulsion. It remains to be seen which historical precedents will inform Cuba’s overall democratic transition and the inclusion (or lack thereof) of LGBT Cubans in that expansion of democratic ci…
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…sumer capitalism that he knew so well, packaging and trademark and massive promotional campaigns. How has Crowell shaped the modern religious landscape? The Moody Bible Institute pioneered a means of generating a reputation of being a purveyor of pure religion. Today these business techniques are everywhere. The biggest churches in America have no denominational affiliation, and they are filled with respectable, middle-class people. This would not…
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…Islam propaganda they will encounter from groups like TTT. 6. Get Involved Today’s public school students need to be prepared to function effectively not only in a global society that is already religiously diverse, but also in a United States that is growing more so. Since religions continue to shape human viewpoints and motivations, students need a solid grasp of the religions of the world. One thing I learned from participating in the 2014 text…
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