Religion Dispatches
…eal of trust exists between us. Just as we do not plagiarize, we honor the code of privacy and do not make public that which was meant to remain private. For me, that trust was broken in the midst of this passionate debate in a way that tells me we have crossed a line. Writing a Facebook wall comment in response to a May 3rd debate between Gordis and Peter Beinart at Columbia University, I referred to Rabbi Gordis as a “tribal fascist.” The tribal…
Read More…from Wikipedia). New Testament scholars have noted that since The DaVinci Code became a cultural phenomenon, there’s been a surge of conspiratorial claims about Jesus, the early church, and the influence of Pagan mystery religions. Authors such as Craig Evans and Bart Ehrman have written with bewilderment at the revival of “mythicist” theories of Jesus and “nineteenth-century philosophical hokum” that was long ago dismissed by serious scholars wh…
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…es. And for anyone who thinks that it’s a big breakthrough for the pope to promote “responsible parenthood,” here’s Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae: Married love, therefore, requires of husband and wife the full awareness of their obligations in the matter of responsible parenthood, which today, rightly enough, is much insisted upon, but which at the same time should be rightly understood. Thus, we do well to consider responsible parenthood in the l…
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…bath water to do their laundry and ration their consumption of vegetables. Between 2001 and 2007 the Japanese increased their per-capita consumer spending by two-tenths of one percent, or basically not at all. So here is the question of the day: Is it really a good idea, at a time when US consumers are already beginning to act in much the same way as those traumatized Japanese, for the White House to signal that we’d better start scrimping and sav…
Read More…h Christian faith. You talked loud about giving more funding to religious (code-word Christian) organizations performing social services and backed it up with little real money. (David Kuo opened my eyes to this.) This is just one example of the way you wooed Christians with good rhetoric and failed to fulfill your promises. Using religious faith as a political tool is what history’s villians have done, and I am afraid you may be closer to that th…
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…ience, Equality.” Turning Point’s video suggests that the church’s program promotes “disunity” and “segregation.” But here too, there’s no evidence to support the claim, and plenty that refutes it. As Edgerton told the Chicago Sun Times, “You don’t fast from things that are despicable. … You don’t fast from things that are ugly,” he said. “You fast from those things that do tug at your heart.” Edgerton told the paper that although they’re celebrat…
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…eve?” is not up to the task of helping its viewers discern the differences between its movie-version of the world, and the world they live in. And that’s a big deal precisely because of the sort of movie it is. It’s not escapism or fantasy or documentary—that’s why criticisms about it being “preachy” are a little silly. It is, though, a movie pretty clearly intended to make Christians act a certain way toward the world they share with others. The…
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…ind him. He holds in his right hand a ghostly “Q+” (according to some, the code name Trump himself uses when he posts on Q message boards) and the text reads “The World Will Soon Understand/Nothing Can Stop What is Coming,” a direct reference to “The Storm.” As I wrote back in 2020: The QAnoners’ apocalypse, unsurprisingly, is one of political partisan violence, culminating in “The Storm,” when all of the so-called “deep state leaders” will be arr…
Read More…er disputes percolating up through the lower courts will present the clash between anti-gay religious beliefs and LGBTQ rights much more clearly. Two cases are about to be heard by state supreme courts: one concerning wedding flowers in Washington and another about custom wedding invitations in Arizona. Is a cross always a cross? And other Establishment Clause matters If the logistics of same-sex weddings have created a steady flow of cases invoki…
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…relational coalition,” intended to increase communication and coordination between members of the “religious freedom movement.” Indeed, CPCF’s efforts may have paved the way for the Promise campaign. “Just as we have seen Project Blitz adapt and incorporate new bills, similar campaigns have adapted and widely promoted Project Blitz-type bills,” Alison Gill, the chief legislative analyst at American Atheists told RD. “These efforts are best underst…
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