Religion Dispatches
…never be discovered embezzling money, enjoying kinky sex, or (The Da Vinci Code notwithstanding) fathering surprise children. It’s not necessary to label something a “cult” to understand the potential peril involved in looking to a living guru. However honest and virtuous that guru might be, she—like the rest of us—is susceptible to tripping and falling right up until the day she dies. What makes some folks willing and able to trust in a charismat…
Read More…ban is not on being gay but on the “practice”—just as there’s a ban on sex between unmarried straight students. In Higa’s 22 years at Westmont, she said, the school has not expelled anyone for being gay. A straight, unmarried couple left, she said, after they refused to live apart: “They understood what they had agreed to and they dropped out.” Alum Melissa Durkee said it’s hard to know what the school might consider “practice.” “Is ‘homosexual pr…
Read More…the strictest literalism is ultimately an interpretation or that no one is free of bias or a priori assumptions. Which reminds me: where are the mainline Protestant and Catholic radio shows? To turn the post-9/11 tables on American Christians, why don’t non-evangelicals “speak up” more in the media to show what Christianity really is? Why do most popular discussions of Christian faith seem to be in evangelical hands when over two-fifths of America…
Read More…sues.” Sex education is one of the things that anti-LGBT groups battle because of fears that it promotes such things as homosexuality and promiscuity. Conference organizers in Nairobi have already indicated that Phyllis Kandie, cabinet secretary for Kenya’s Ministry of East African Community, Labour and Social Protection will be in attendance and the conference agenda includes an exclusive closed-door meeting for speakers, dignitaries and members…
Read More…ggested. “I know observant guys who I wanted to offer a match, and they refused. They likely refused for that reason. But they lived in total devotion, to protect the Torah. Sometimes a person has to sacrifice himself for things which are fundamental in Jewish life. Horowitz “admitted that the rabbinical and religious world has failed in providing a Jewish-halachic response to the complexity involved in the existence of a state.” “Thank God that w…
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…her sort of ecstasy. Crowded into the House of Abba with the other Jesus Freaks, I prayed with eyes closed and palms uplifted, whispering sweet nothings in God’s ear, beseeching him to fill me with his holy spirit. Part 3: In The House of Abba, a Friday night coffee house church that scrapped the liturgy and smudged the historically sharp line between congregation and clergy, our teenage narrator finds Jesus Christ Superstar and discovers a Christ…
Read More…known for attacks on Scientology, decided to send a message to the Catholic Church by shutting down the official Vatican website (still not responding as of this posting). What are the Church’s misdeeds, according to these code crusaders? They go back to the selling of indulgences in the 16th century. And more recently, of course, there’s the Church’s interference in Italy’s domestic politics. (Not just Italy, we’d have to say.) – The Eds. …
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…ther Coughlin—to whom Beck owes a debt for his invention of hate radio—because Coughlin, at one time a supporter of the New Deal, changed course and supported fascism and authoritarianism. In the hall of mirrors that houses Beck’s history that means that social justice=fascism. Conservatives face a serious challenge from Beck, however: as the panelists at the social justice session at the Freedom Federation Summit admitted, millenial evangelicals…
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…of the social justice movements (especially around worker justice issues) used Yiddish as an organizing language but spoke “American.” The conceptual vocabulary of the union movement and the socialist movement was embraced by the Jewish participants in those movements; and continued to be used when those Jews started their own organizations, such as the American Jewish Congress. During the seventies (which was, for all intents and purposes, when…
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…also be pedestrian, taking place year-round on every continent, every zip code. It is a game, proven by its global appeal, which defies socioeconomic standing. Therein lies further emphasis of the World Cup’s importance, too: the world stage. Marxism has long been called the world’s secular religion, but a football fan knows economic ideology pales in comparison to the world’s devotion to football. John Carlin of Time magazine is right when he sa…
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