Religion Dispatches
…gives lie to that myth. It was under Muslim control for centuries, and at best is currently 10% Muslim. Even if Pakistan and Bangladesh are counted as part of larger South Asia, only 1/3 of the population is Muslim, spread through the north, the center, and the south. There is no universally recognized command to convert and/or kill. 3. Muslims do not condemn terrorism. Part of moving beyond this simplistic idea of Muslims is to move beyond simpl…
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…am most proud was when I graduated from University College in 1987 as the best male athlete. As I tell my students at LMU, I don’t look like much now, being old and slow and fat, but I used to be somebody. When I moved to the San Fernando Valley in 1997 to start teaching at Cal State Northridge, I sought out Coach Wooden. That was another of the amazing things about him. He was approachable, answering his own phone and mail, meeting with complete…
Read More…on his self-made man biography rather than individual human rights as the best way to achieve equality.” In early February, the U.S. Ambassador hosted a gathering of activists to brainstorm strategies to combat the possible anti-LGBTI propaganda law that could reach Parliament next year. Also in early February, Randy Berry, the U.S. Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons held a series of low-profile meetings in Jakarta. While high-le…
Read More…long as those needs get the response they deserve. As it happens, even the best of leaders blow it once in a while. The trick is to recover as best you can, while maintaining the human connection. Politicians don’t have to be Jesus, but if you can’t occasionally set the prepared speech aside and invite people to share their suffering, then as a candidate you’re not worth a bucket of warm piss, to use John Nance Garner’s colorful expression. In tha…
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…and only very incompletely explored, ethical territory as we sort out the best ways to balance personal privacy and public safety as these are impacted by our engagement with new media. But even given difficulties defining necessary and appropriate boundaries of personal, professional, and institutional transparency, we can see the virtue of transparency overall as having a stabilizing ethical function that invites openness and honesty while disc…
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…an beings are completely free to use their rational capacity to decide how best to live within the world. That is why their vocation in the world is so important. But as Lutherans engage in their vocation in the world, they are not promised to be able to know any better than non-Christians what is right or wrong, good or bad. This is why Lutherans cannot, on the basis of any secret or specialized revelation, seek to tell the world how to run its b…
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…eech. The notion that a man speaking to a woman shows that he values her encodes a regime of masculine privilege and feminine deference. The (privileged) man is entitled to speech and the woman is expected to be gratified to get to listen to him. The man is a knower, an explainer, a holder forth, while the woman must see it as a privilege that she’s spoken to rather than ignored. She’s expected to give her attention to a man as though doing so w…
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…hile Lewis’s case is popular because of its accessibility, it’s hardly the best version of this kind of argument. Robert Adams’ Finite and Infinite Goods is far more powerful. But given Lewis’s accessible approach, it makes sense that Collins would be both familiar with it and prone to invoke it in popular lectures. This line of argument is, obviously, controversial. It relies on the premise that there are standards of moral truth that hold regard…
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…hat John McCain leaned over during the debate to tell him that “that’s the best answer I’ve ever heard and exactly what I believe.” Betrayed by the Religious Right To anybody who paid any attention to Huckabee during the GOP primary, his disdain for the media was obvious, as was his loathing of Romney, so much of the book’s animus comes across as old news and surprisingly petty. What is astonishing is the outright contempt with which Huckabee trea…
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…merican political fundamentalism. Sharlet, who has since become one of the best journalists covering American religion today (and a columnist for Religion Dispatches), got a remarkable scoop some years back. An acquaintance invited him into Ivanwald, the community in Arlington, Virginia, that exposed him to a network of which few outsiders are aware. He calls it “The Family,” though it goes by several names; some incorporated, others not. Beginnin…
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