Religion Dispatches
…Syria Creates Over 300,000 Refugees; the frustration of rebels waiting for Western military support brings them closer to al-Qaeda extremists. 9. Malala Yousufzai, Pakistani Teenage Education Activist Escapes an Assassination Attempt by Taliban. 10. Brazen Taliban attacks in Afghanistan/Pakistan cause over two thousand deaths—but they still participate in negotiation talks in France and Qatar. 11. Boko Haram, Radical Islamists in Nigeria, Increase…
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…ross caste lines is telling, he says. Religion-Based Discrimination? Many Westerners assume that in a modern, economically powerful India, caste is no longer an issue—and the 2.8 million Indians living in the United States often dismiss it as a relic of the past. And yes, untouchability was outlawed in the Indian constitution in 1950. But the constitution also set up a reservation system that holds spots for “scheduled castes” (the legal term for…
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…or autonomy from a hostile mainstream and by necessity engendered by their western isolation. Today, that drive is motivated—as I’ve heard discussed among leading figures in Mormon Studies this week and as was hinted at in the Church’s own statement and a Deseret News editorial today—by the need to create an endowment capable of sustaining the global physical infrastructure of Mormonism (temples, churches, universities) even as the bulk of the Chu…
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…vin had borrowed the trope of the satanic conspiracy that has old roots in Western culture and used it to create a fairly obvious social parable. Polanski melded that with aspects of the grindhouse tradition and old Val Lewton horror films. I’m not sure if the satire is too broad or too focused. But I also think it might have been clearer to viewers in ’68 than today, especially to Catholics in the wake of Humanae Vitae [the 1968 encyclical reaffi…
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…clear inferno but a quiet and cold blanket of snow in which, they charge, “Western Civilization” is laying itself down to die. Thankfully, there was clear and forceful testimony about PRENDA as an anti-woman wolf in pro-woman sheep’s clothing by a number of advocates. This from Miriam W. Yeung, Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum: PRENDA pretends to speak the language of women’s equality, but, unfortunately, the…
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…itorial coherence at any costs. The nation was carving out large pieces of western territory and calling them states; each of those states got representatives in the US Congress, so power was shifting west. Because of their paranoia, people in the east overestimated the electoral power of Mormonism in the intermountain west. They worried about Mormons forming a voting bloc—a treasonous, licentious, and communist voting bloc. And theocratic? Mainst…
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…evolution, the development of a “global perspective” which brought the non-Western religions to the attention of Americans (oddly, he does not mention the changes in American culture brought on by the immigration act of 1965), the growing wealth of Americans, and the waning of the East Coast WASP establishment. These factors, he claims, led to a weakening of Christian orthodoxy and its hold over the American spirit. The traditional churches respon…
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…nd with it the bluesy sinews of the American soul—to the hallowed halls of Western art music, smothered under a featureless musical goo and carried off to further mutilations I will not relate here. Mr. Smisek, I am not a religious person. If I can be said to adhere to any confession, it is that primordial, preliterate one that has sprung forth everywhere ever since we beings were human: the covenant of sound. You and your associates have desecrat…
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…the little-known story of Mexico’s Cristero War of 1926-1929. The largely western conflagration was sparked by President Plutarco Calles’ long-delayed implementation of the strict anticlerical measures of the 1917 Constitution, and by the Church hierarchy’s suspension of services in response. While political and religious elites jockeyed for power, lay Catholics—bereft of sacraments—rose up in arms. Michael Love’s script develops several sympathet…
Read More…d when writing? Generally speaking, the audience is readers of Barton and promoters of his books, such as ministries, radio hosts, and the conservative religious community. That audience needs to see that they are being offered a distorted and misguided presentation of Jefferson. In addition, the book will be valuable for anyone who wants to see Jefferson more clearly and evaluate historical claims more completely. Are you hoping to just inform r…
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