Religion Dispatches
…rican Center for Law and Justice’s activities in Zimbabwe (where ACLJ also promotes recognition of a “Christian nation”): The Zimbabwe outpost of the ACLJ isn’t Robertson’s first foray into Africa. Earlier this year, prosecutors in the war crime trial of former Liberian warlord Charles Taylor alleged that the televangelist had lobbied the Bush White House on his behalf in exchange for lucrative gold mining contracts—a claim Robertson denied. And i…
Read More…reed, nor the abandonment of our diplomatic responsibilities in the Middle East, nor exponential increases in global warming, nor the collapsing US currency, nor record spikes in oil prices worldwide. No, the truly challenging legacy is the profound sense of a nation and its civic institutions set morally adrift. It is galling to recall how, just prior to Bush’s first controversial election, he and his Vice Presidential running-mate proudly announ…
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…y. I was ordained in 1990, so 26 years ago. I was ordained into the Kansas East Annual Conference, which is now part of the Great Plains Conference. And I’ve always kept my membership here. Prior to that, I had been the Dean of Students at Candler School of Theology at Emory in Atlanta. My most recent appointment, which I’m just finishing up in the next couple of weeks, is in Edgerton, Kansas. It’s a small town just outside of Kansas City. Our att…
Read More…knowledge,” especially when compared to situation in nations of the Middle East where news media have more or less open access. Without that core understanding of what is going on in the region, what the issues are, and what people’s actions are there, there is no way to make any association with what the two brothers in Boston did or why. He says, “The Chechens do not understand why people such as the Georgians, the Azeris and the Armenians were…
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…orums for devout LDS whose spouses have rejected LDS belief, such as Faces East. The Great Calling of Homemaking Furthermore, these attitudes about marriage also explain the existence of Mormon feminist blogs like Exponent II, Zelophehad’s Daughters, or the more well-established Feminist Mormon Housewives, which receives in the neighborhood of a million hits a month. Given that young Mormon women are encouraged to get educations, get married, and…
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…global plurality will (probably) not last forever. Bonus: while the Middle East or Africa would be an understandable guess, the largest Muslim population in the world by 2050 will actually be India. 2008 Summer Olympics – Opening Ceremony – Beijing, China 同一个世界 同一个梦想 – U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program – FMWRC. Photo via U.S. Army/Flickr 3. Because China: That Thing about Muslim Plurality in 2070 Might Not Actually Be True The wild card that c…
Read More…cleric. While homosexuality is prohibited nearly everywhere in the Middle East, homosexual acts are punishable by up to seven years in prison in Iraq. ABC News reported that “The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs believes as many as 30 people have been killed during the last three months because they were — or were perceived to be — gay.” A Human Right Watch Iraq country report 2009, pointed out that “Lesbian, gay…
Read More…an and gay people should be killed rather than jailed Malawi’s bishops are promoting misinformation when they claim first that homosexuality is “alien” to Malawians and second that foreign aid is being used to pressure donor nations to adopt LGBT rights. Misinformation is problematic, but doubly so when used to endorse, implicitly as well as explicitly, anti-LGBT prejudices that have and can lead to discrimination, imprisonment, and violence. Thou…
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…rried priests serving under the jurisdiction of Rome. Byzantine Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians who have entered into communion with Rome, maintain the Eastern Orthodox practice around clerical celibacy, allowing married men to be ordained to the diaconate and priesthood, though not the episcopacy (i.e. bishop). The Catholic Church also allows married clergymen who convert to Catholicism to, on a case-by-case basis, be ordained into the Cat…
Read More…ked by Iran) make a mockery of simplistic schemas to understand the Middle East. But sometimes, it seems, there is one and one motive alone that trumps all, which unites forces that would otherwise find themselves at opposite ends of global affairs. Consider this excerpt from the Times’ article: After the missiles were shown destroying Syrian military helicopters, the matter took an unusual turn when a state-controlled newspaper in China, apparent…
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