Religion Dispatches
…s “sexualityism,” or promotion of the believe that “sex should not only be free of the slightest reflection on its link with procreation, but also free of commitment, or even the real possibility of a relationship between the man and the woman involved.” Granted, as an official Jesuit publication America is on a short leash. Just ask former editor Father Thomas Reese, who was sacked by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for a…
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…ed by televangelist Pat Robertson. The Anti-LGBTQ group Alliance Defending Freedom has set up shop outside the US as well, dubbing its coordinating international body Alliance Defending Freedom International. The Polish Ordo Iuris, a right-wing catholic organization which leads a crusade against abortion, is likewise well connected on an international level with German pundit Birgit Kelle, a regular on the anti-abortion circuit, having recently sp…
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…Bush declared that he had to invade Iraq because God wanted to set people free. I paced our empty church and told the President: “You just cut my umbilical cord to Christianity.” I had no idea what that meant. If President Bush was like a midwife, cutting my connection to those lifelong beliefs, then what new life was being born? Years later, Phil reminded me that someone else had freed us from our theological assumptions in a far more generous a…
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…military solution. The only future is peace and safety for all—grounded in freedom, justice, and equality,” the ADL shot back saying their ideas “help give rise to antisemitism” and employ “antisemitic tropes.” “In this moment of confusion and pain, we must be clear about one thing: Every Palestinian life, every Jewish life, and every Israeli life is precious, and the Israeli government has failed all of those lives. Only peace, justice, and equal…
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…in saying that because I’ve seen both sides. Not that American Buddhism is free of problems, but it’s the purest Buddhism. Of course, if you go to a real Zen master in Japan, that’s even purer. It is absolutely essential to remember the source of the teachings. You’re saying that modern mindfulness has lost contact with the source teachings? Absolutely. No doubt about it. Didn’t you help to bring that about? I hope not. The part that doesn’t conce…
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…ed from North America to Europe, South America, and the Philippines, met a number of politically powerful Republican politicians and conservative religious leaders, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Iran/Contra figure Oliver North, and then-Senator Rick Santorum. Religious leaders like Charles Stanley (a former distributor), Dr. Robert Schuller and the late Dr. D. James Kennedy of Florida’s Coral Ridge Ministries—a multimedia, m…
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…harist, it included a restatement of a prohibition of totally wheat-gluten-free hosts. This was often reported as something of a snub of the Celiac sufferers (or gluten intolerant) among the faithful. But reading through the directive and the supporting documentation, I was struck by their attempts to accommodate communicants who can’t tolerate some essential aspect of the rite. The bread for the host can be so low in gluten as to qualify for “glu…
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…now hold dear. In his tormented, lonesome, obsessive, Calvinist way, he is free. I find him hard to like, but easy to love. Throughout The Wordy Shipmates, Vowell suggests that we live not in John Winthrop or Roger Williams’ world, but in Ronald Reagan’s redaction of their world. This, she argues effectively, is a tragic turn to a noble Arbella image. Ronald Reagan made us believe our city on the hill would come not through serious communitarianis…
Read More…tive legal and religious groups that the agency is attempt to stifle their free speech. Through efforts such as Pulpit Freedom Sunday, pastors openly flout the law. Enforcement of the rule, and the revocation of a participating church’s tax-exempt status, though, could trigger a constitutional challenge to it. The rule against politicking, though, isn’t aimed at suppressing free speech but at ensuring that taxpayers don’t subsidize political activ…
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…hrist.” She goes on, “We came to Jesus, because we were bound, we were not free. But Jesus paid the ultimate price to set us free for all of eternity.” No, there’s simply no tenable case to be made that Boebert is not a “real” Christian. She is very much a Christian. She is also a terrible person. And if we can’t get it through our heads that it is very possible to be both of those things at the same time, we will never effectively counter the cor…
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