Religion Dispatches
…to a veritable boom in the quarrying industry were that still the practice today). The same for homosexuals. And the biblical conditions for divorce are so strict that a woman could be beaten within an inch of her life and still not be allowed to legally separate. The point is that nobody in the mainstream Christian church today would argue any of these propositions. A hundred years ago, that was not necessarily the case. In other words, the defin…
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…tinues. “But, Paige, this is your most defiant act of protest yet, because today, you make a public declaration that you are a child of God. Are you ready to be renamed and reclaimed in the name of Jesus?” Paige’s answer? “Absolutely.” A few episodes later, after she does a little more snooping and Elizabeth gently begins to try to tell her about their lives by taking her on a field trip to an impoverished, largely African-American neighborhood wh…
Read More…the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office, said, “We are disappointed with today’s decision. It is unacceptable for employers – especially for-profit companies – to use their personal beliefs as an excuse to deny critical health coverage to the people who work for them.” She added, “This is not religious freedom, this is discrimination. Real religious liberty gives everyone the right to make their own decisions about their own health, including wh…
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…sumer capitalism that he knew so well, packaging and trademark and massive promotional campaigns. How has Crowell shaped the modern religious landscape? The Moody Bible Institute pioneered a means of generating a reputation of being a purveyor of pure religion. Today these business techniques are everywhere. The biggest churches in America have no denominational affiliation, and they are filled with respectable, middle-class people. This would not…
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…nationalism dates back to the pilgrims, my series examines how features of today’s God-and-country ideology owe a particular debt to the obsessions that transfixed the popular culture of Britain in the 1890s: the supposed “hordes” of immigrants diluting the nation’s racial stock; melancholy over the putative “weakness” of a once-great nation; panic over non-straight public expressions of sexuality; a sci-fi tinged apocalypticism, in which heroes a…
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…n goods would hasten the end of the modern public art museum as we know it today. But again, the Greeks insist that this case is unique, not a precedent-setter. The case is even more complicated because when Elgin endeavored to sell the collection to the British government, the Parliament held three months of hearings to determine: 1) whether the pieces were rightfully Elgin’s to sell; 2) how much such an unprecedented collection was actually wort…
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…an alternative to yoga,” which she calls PraiseMoves. In a 2005 article in Today’s Christian Woman ominously titled “The Truth About Yoga,” Holly Vicente Robaina recounts Willis’ cautionary tale of how yoga led her into a life of errant New Age practices, loneliness, alcoholism, and promiscuity. After years of pain, she discovered Christianity, burned her New Age books, and gave up yoga. In a follow-upChristianity Today article titled “Take a Pass…
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…uman body. Craddock sacralized sexual intercourse, which is not radical by today’s popular American standards and, in Schmidt’s words, may even seem “mundane” to the contemporary reader. However, for the mainstream turn-of-the-century American, it was antisocial heterodoxy. This demonstrates that not only was the sacralization of the body present in this early system of modern yoga, but it was also so significant to that system that martyrdom occu…
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…e of one of those things being the priesthood? Pope Francis repeated again today his idea of the “feminine dimension” of the Catholic church being represented by Mary, and also said once again that Mary is “more important” to the spirituality of the church than the apostles on Pentecost. What the pope is neglecting to acknowledge, however, is that Pentecost would never have happened if Mary Magdelene hadn’t been the first witness to the resurrecti…
Read More…emptions in the bill. Wavering Republican senators are reportedly seeking broader religious exemptions akin to those contained in New Hampshire’s marriage equality law. CNN and other news outlets have reported that the governor can extend the legislative session beyond today’s deadline and has said that he would do so. Today, a Buffalo television station reported that the marriage vote would likely take place tomorrow; it said the governor and Rep…
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