Religion Dispatches
…to defend “traditional” marriage and defend “religious liberty,” which is code for defending the religious right’s ability to bully gay and lesbian people at will using God as their shield. But, wait, there’s more. Gingrich has hit the conservative Christian trifecta by sitting down with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board to affirm that opposition to marriage equality stating that there is a “big difference between saying that you’re to ha…
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…emand that every Jesuit imaginatively engage with Christ, surely to become better acquainted with the god-man, but also to know himself more intimately. Following the opening lines of Ignatius of Loyola’s guide, the purpose of undertaking this rigorous self-evaluation was “To overcome oneself and to order one’s life without reaching a decision through some disordered affection.” Yet a sense of self must be forged before it can be overcome. Each t…
Read More…It seems that’s when the personhood battle really became a power struggle between the personhood lobby and the Republican leadership. With so many amendments and so much public controversy surrounding the bill, the Republican leadership opted not to bring the bill forward. This raised the ire of Personhood USA and Oklahomans for Life, who continued to lobby for its passage. Personhood USA responded immediately with a press release calling Speaker…
Read More…t ideas, and right actions, iman wa al-‘a’mal al-salihah. The relationship between orthodoxy and orthopraxis has come under attack recently, and by these three scholars in particular. If you challenge some of the presumptions about orthodoxy, you effect change in orthopraxis and all of these men were vanguards in this respect. Islam is built upon ideas. If we contribute to the world of ideas in any way, but in particular in such a way that everyon…
Read More…Here, I think, is a better way to pose the question of the right relation between religion and politics as it relates to Obama’s long-suffering presidential candidacy. I propose the following as a sort of genealogy of the current confusion. 1) The two main political parties in the United States today are fairly loose coalitions, and since Reagan’s presidential victory in1980, the coalition that fractures worst loses. 2) Evangelical and Fundamenta…
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…a part in their lives that I’ve seen,” Foley said. “I think they are, for better or for worse, bracingly in the secular present without regard to any kind of moral code, which doesn’t mean that, certainly in Claire’s situation, there haven’t been moments when she has faced up against.” As Season 3 wore on, even tiny glimmers of moral misgivings in Claire’s mind appeared to be driving a wedge in the Underwood’s strange union. “She definitely has a…
Read More…oliticians do not need to make these arguments. Which brings us back to the 2020 election. Coons suggested that the Democrats inject more religion into their party. Buttigieg seems to agree and is using it as a cudgel against Republicans. A better suggestion, one that both parties should employ, is the one Tara Isabella Burton made over at Religion News Service in a story about some campaigns hiring faith engagement specialists: “In coming years,…
Read More…local concern that he wasn’t going to comment on, when he otherwise has (albeit in a perfunctory way) called for the promotion of women’s rights in other parts of the Middle East? And since Obama was promoting the rights and freedom of religious minorities last night, wouldn’t this case fall under his concern? There are good religion questions. They just don’t get asked….
Read More…nguish himself from his pal John McCain who seems willing to differentiate between extremist Muslims and the mainstream faithful. Those are important points, but they all overlook what is, perhaps, the most troubling aspect of this mini-scandal: it fits within a growing pattern of elite non-Muslims misappropriating Islamic phrases and insisting that the most extreme interpretations or uses are the correct ones. Think about the term “jihad.” It’s o…
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…to make sure this predator was not around children. No one challenged the code of deference to those higher up and obedience to the rule of secrecy. Now we have “the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in Church history,” declares the National Catholic Reporter in an editorial. The New York Times, which broke the story of abuse at the deaf school in Wisconsin, quotes a priest in Berlin as saying the crisis is “the worst in 100 yea…
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