Religion Dispatches
…ue as abusers and actively covered up the Church’s protection of them. The list is long of those within the Roman Church who have been aggrieved by what many have seen as Pope Benedict’s actions to roll back the reforms of Vatican II. Representatives of the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR) declined to comment for publication on Benedict’s impact on communities of Catholic women religious who faced intense scrutiny—some would say persec…
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…’s no central repository, even in the Vatican… where you can go and find a list of all the Catholic Church abuse files from around the world,” Clark said. “With the Mormon Church, everything that happens goes to Salt Lake.” The problem is those documents aren’t discoverable in court. The LDS Church maintains it does not keep records of child abuse. Plaintiff attorneys have been unable to convince courts that the Church’s disciplinary documents fal…
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…essible to reason and thus common to all humanity. The Church’s efforts to promote them are not therefore confessional in character, but addressed to all people, whatever their religious affiliation. “In social networks,” says Benedict, “believers show their authenticity” in a variety of forms, including through self-identification as Christians and through the witness of their enactment of Christian values in the ways they communicate with others…
Read More…u have to have the time and endurance for more than three hours of A and B list celebrities talking and praying and singing, but you could be rewarded with hearing Pat Boone clumsily recite prayers in Hebrew, or a shofar blowing by Rabbi Neal Surasky of Chosen People Ministries, which is all about “proclaiming the Good News through Jesus the Messiah to Jewish people around the world.” (I was late, so I missed the latter, but I suppose that’s what…
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…” My early explorations have led me to believe that Tea Party constitutionalism, for all its reverence for the Constitution, is actually the preferred constitutional theory of the Anti-Federalist opponents of the Constitution rather than the Federalist supporters. I am still in the process of deciding how I want and need to pursue this argument….
Read More…leaders have embraced Yunus despite their alliance with Islamic fundamentalist party Jamaat Islami and their broad disagreements with a pro-gay stance. In addition, the US government is reacting to Awami League’s rejection of Yunus by affiliating more closely with opposition leaders. Rather than an exemplar of the deep religious split in Bangladeshi society, Yunus effectively scrambles the division. Religion, in other words, has little to do with…
Read More…would still be commonplace. In fact, if we were today to adhere to a literalist rendition of the Christian scriptures, the 21st century would be a deeply troubling place, and the list of legitimised social oppressions would be disturbingly long. Slavery would still be regarded as normal, as political constituencies around the world, like the pre-civil war American south, continued to invoke the New Testament injunction that “slaves be obedient to…
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…lf is most likely no true believer in the law, but rather pragmatically using widespread popular Russian homophobia in pursuit of specific domestic and foreign policy goals—to placate hardline Orthodox believers and to keep the more radical, nationalist right at bay at home, while sending a clear message to the West that Russia won’t be pressured into adopting liberal norms. Like this story? Your tax-deductible $5 or $10 will help us pay writers,…
Read More…aneously maintain and subvert the rule. The Epstein case is obviously an extreme example, but I’d love to hear about others in the comments – maybe they’ll inspire a list of the most interesting ones in the near future. (But please, let’s not talk about the “Mormon Soak”)…
Read More…g on. He must believe that once he’s no longer with the group, people will listen to him. Heck, they may even buy his “I was once an anti-Muslim extremist” book (which happens to fit well into the growing niche of the “I was once a Muslim extremist” category). Two serious questions remain for Robinson and for Quilliam, which facilitated his departure. First, will Robinson’s message really change? Just because he’s no longer with the EDL and claims…
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