Religion Dispatches
…Over 2,000 persons began the week marching through the streets of Southern California’s San Fernando Valley in order to raise money and awareness concerning genocide in the Sudan. “Walk for Darfur” is organized each year by the Jewish World Watch. The crowd was comprised primarily of members from about 60 area synagogues, yet was led by about a dozen Sudanese from Arizona….
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…erials to start children as early as first grade on a diet of his collision-of-worldviews thesis. That framework forms the basis for his conspiracy-minded theories about American progressives, the Democratic Party, and what Noebel depicts as a fifth column right inside the US Congress led by “hardcore socialist” Nancy Pelosi. At King’s, about a dozen students in the audience had attended Summit, and they nodded enthusiastically as Noebel described…
Read More…n for the Poor,” an idea famously expanded upon by Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez in 1973’s Theology of Liberation. This “option for the poor,” then, has been an important part of Francis, then-Bergolio’s life—even though his take on Liberation Theology never went as Marxist as Rush Limbaugh might think it is. No surprise, too, that the Pope has so far been relentless in emphasizing unjust systems and poverty. It is not only his Jesuit identity, but his id…
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…t nature’s grandeur but the holiness within that grandeur, the healing and sanctifying effects of yielding fully to it, and the necessity of communicating, especially to the young, that this bright green-blue Earth is our only home. And that it’s so alive—and so much bigger than us—that a little reverence and humility wouldn’t be a bad idea. Once I laughed at how the Unitarians had written vernal awakening words to replace the original stanzas of…
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…’t be left high and dry; the film website’s FAQ section ends with a few not-so-subtle suggestions. For one, viewers can “offer to help women in [their] church register to vote online.” Another tip? “Remind women that their vote is private and no one can ‘figure out’ who they voted for.” Remember, despite all the pre-election noise about White evangelical women abandoning Trump in 2020, 70% of them still voted for him. Any meaningful dent in that n…
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…the “sons of God” having sex with women, or its more developed tradition in 1 Enoch 6-11. But the idea of “demon sex” also caught the attention of the media in 2011, when the late C. Peter Wagner, former professor at Fuller Theological Seminary School of World Missions and founder of the New Apostolic Reformation in 2001, said that the Japanese economy suffered a severe blow because the emperor of Japan had sex with the sun goddess, the chief “spi…
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…said.” Around the time of these conferences, Georgetown University’s three-year-old LGBTQ Resource Center received a $1 million donation from a somewhat surprising source. Paul J. Tagliabue, a Georgetown alumnus and former Commissioner of the NFL, and his wife Chandler allocated one-fifth of their $5 million gift to the university to establish the Tagliabue Initiative for LGBTQ Life. “The Center is inspired by Catholic and Jesuit principles of r…
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…onism. Here is Churchland’s response: Reductionism is often equated with go-away-ism—with claiming that some high-level phenomenon does not really exist. But wait. When we learn that fire really is rapid oxidation—that is the real underlying nature of fire—we do not conclude that fire does not exist. Rather, we understand a macrolevel thing in terms of microlevel parts and their organization. In other words, for Churchland it’s a mistake to confus…
Read More…ions spearheading up the drive to pass Proposition 8 in California—the anti-same-sex marriage initiative—has issued its 2008 Voter guide. Not too extensive in its coverage, the “Voter Issue Guide” for the 2008 Presidential Race is divided into three sections: “Homosexuality”; “Sanctity of Life”; and “Other Key Issues.” Each area contains five points. Homosexuality: Federal Protection of Traditional Marriage—Limiting marriage to the union of one ma…
Read More…t not covet what does not belong to us. There’s another angle on biblically-motivated opposition to these supposed “Ponzi schemes:” one prophecy-hunting pastor believes their role in a financial armageddon was foretold in the Bible. In his 2010 book, The Coming Economic Armageddon: What Bible Prophecy Warns about the New Global Economy, San Diego megachurch pastor, radio host, and Tim LaHaye protégé David Jeremiah likens Social Security to a Ponzi…
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