Religion Dispatches
…f religious experiences that came with the new settlers. The Master is not about a cult, but about the beginnings of our current spiritual situation, an age that knee-jerks the mantra, “I’m spiritual, not religious.” Masters of Our Own Domain If there is one thing that the four recent films hold in common, it’s that each charismatic leader plays and preys on the personal histories of the individual followers. Each leader downplays institutions, ri…
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…lse to search for and locate “religion” in events like these, and to think about how we think about “evidence” in so doing. Much has been said in response to the Syrian civil war and the recent use of chemical weapons. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, of all people, cautioned that there is insufficient evidence to justify military intervention. The Obama administration (Kerry specifically) countered that there was such evidence, though wa…
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…t vs the New World Order,” has since been changed to “Traditionis Custodes & The Great Reset: Where do we go from here?” The new title—linking the ban on the traditional Latin mass to the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory—is accompanied by a banner image of four Knights Templar kneeling behind a priest. Among the first day’s sessions is one titled “The Crusade has been called, the Kingship of Christ and Proper Worship of the King”; while the second…
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…anguage of “fetal material” and Rayford’s reaction to it suggest it’s less about care than about disgust—disgust at the procedure, but also disgust about lawless sexuality outside the purity of heterosexual, patriarchal marriage. As Sarah Posner argues, abortion, like homosexuality, triggers a disgust response more than a care response in conservative Christian psychology. If harm reduction were a priority, we would have seen decades of conservati…
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…logy tour documentary.” Harris even hosts an interview series on Instagram about the topic. Jeremiah later followed this allusion with another, referencing Ryan Bell’s in/famous experience of being “atheist for a year,” which garnered national coverage, and led him to leave his Christian pastorate for humanist chaplaincy. He currently hosts a podcast about the topic. Jeremiah also makes reference to Christian country music (CCM) artists “falling a…
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…u had to leave out? There was. What are some of the biggest misconceptions about your topic? Where to begin with misconceptions about Islam? Light without Fire was built on the misperception that Islam is essentially violent. In the title is my answer: The students and scholars of Zaytuna believe in the light of knowledge and unequivocally condemn the fire that comes with violence. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing? I come from…
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…cholar, disagreed with the question itself: “Should I curb my own opinions—about the Bible or about politics—due to fear that these may prevent others from speaking up? In other words, should I voluntarily take away from myself the right to speak freely on issues that I feel strongly about? Are only younger people welcome to speak up?” On the other hand William Schniedewind, a professor of Hebrew Bible at UCLA, expressed a sense of nuance and conf…
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…eferred, but necessary, and just how we can get there.” (Dizzying indeed.) About the Zeitgeist films’ arguments about currency, Donovan continued, “While many people may find it hard to digest the idea of a world without currency, [Zeitgeist founder Peter] Joseph’s argument that our economic system is the source of our greatest social problems was supported with valuable evidence.” We may never know the actual influence of Zeitgeist on Loughner or…
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…ins. Several states are mandated to share medically-inaccurate information about abortion with patients, including inaccurate claims about links between abortion and future fertility, abortion and breast cancer, and abortion “reversal.” One-third of women in this country will have an abortion by the time they are 45. Abortion care is part of women’s normal reproductive healthcare. Where is the Tony Fauci of women’s health? When will Joe Biden stan…
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…tand the entirety of Thiel’s spiritual worldview. But what strikes me most about his behavior, and about his politics, is its total deafness to a tension that suffuses Christian thought: namely, a deep ambivalence toward personal, temporal power. Thiel seems to share none of that anxiety. What’s so distinctive about him is not his degree of influence. It’s his eagerness to exercise that power with as few limits as possible, whether through liberta…
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