Religion Dispatches
…d back in 2014, defended itself by invoking section 18 of the Human Rights code, which allows a religious group to restrict participation to the faithful. So while AA presents itself to the public as a “spiritual” program, distinguishing itself from “religious” groups, it nevertheless claimed “religious” legal status in order to protect itself. Although the definition of “religion” is generally assumed in common parlance, it is not in any sense ea…
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…what’s right is, at the very least, elitist; it’s not dissimilar from the Republicans’ insistence on prosecuting the war in Iraq even after the 2006 elections, when the American people made it clear that they wanted out. Are the American people really that irrelevant, that you can wait a full week to bother to tell us why you got us into another war before we’re even out of Iraq and Afghanistan? 2) I am rightly made uneasy by conflicts with no…
Read More…der identity (as defined in paragraph 249(c)(4) of title 18, United States Code), sexual orientation, or disability, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity funded in whole or in part with funds made available under [VAWA], and any other program or activity funded in whole or in part with funds appropriated for grants, cooperative agreements, and other assistance…
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…First, Douthat warns of encroaching “scientism” which, in this context, is code for failing to believe the supernatural truth claims of Christianity. Second, paradoxically, Douthat perceives a tendency among non-religious people to embrace the mystical belief systems that he himself rejects, like astrology or wellness. (So much for scientism!) Yet we don’t see any actual evidence that these trends are as widespread among the deconverted as he sugg…
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…antiabortion activists. The bill, HB 3549, seeks to amend the state’s law code so that an abortion would be treated as a homicide by the state’s judicial system, which could make the death penalty a potential consequence. It would be difficult to interpret this as anything other than an embrace of the death-dealing dimensions of forced birth politics. What’s going on? Why would a movement that seeks to “preserve life” be so ready to embrace death…
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…me foreign forces” he didn’t name. He also accused gay people of trying to promote themselves… Lokodo, a former Catholic priest who condemns homosexuality, has previously been accused to leading efforts to foil the public activities of LGBTI Ugandans. Serbia: Prime Minister names lesbian to cabinet Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic announced that he would appoint Ana Brnabic to his cabinet as minister for state administration, which would make her t…
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…to conduct our life together at the National Youth Event in a manner that promotes a community of faith.” Literally, that manual spent three times more words trying to get the kids to drink water instead of Coca-Cola in the heat than it spent on its entire religious/theological content. It made me wonder if the football players or UCC kids had more rituals and prayers during their weeks. L: Your example catches the flavor, but there is more to sa…
Read More…me up with the best answer: “A narrative is the key to everything, and the Republicans had a much more coherent attack and narrative… The president was able to keep the election centered on safety (the terrorist threat) and values, rather than on Iraq and the stagnant economy. Bush asked people to vote their beliefs and feelings, rather than to judge his performance or ideas for the future.” The one crucial point they overlooked is that safety is…
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…d appeared the year before, and Mark Zuckerberg was feverishly writing the code that would become Facebook. YouTube was just an idea, and wouldn’t appear online in any form until 2005. John Paul did embrace social media as it existed then. He was the first pope to use SMS to send out a daily message to Catholics in 2004, after brokering a deal with Verizon—one of the first troubling commercial agreements between the Vatican and communications comp…
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…d blog post on the issue, he still wrote, “I think Planned Parenthood is a code name for baby-killing.” Someone who thinks like that is not someone liberals can work with. And what could be more delegitimizing than Republicans clearly demonstrating that they’re no longer dedicated to democratic norms, to protecting the federal bureaucracy from politicization, to fairness, to democracy itself? McConnell’s Senate Republicans pushed through the confi…
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