Religion Dispatches
…ut if you’ve read Moral Man, you’ll also know that Niebuhr doesn’t waste a minute on bipartisanship. To do anything worth doing, you have to work with groups, he knew. Moral life takes us beyond the life of ones and twos and into society, which means, inevitably, playing with the fire of sin. It’s that paradox that consumes Niebuhr, not Brooksian post-partisanship, which really means “Democrats should let the Republicans do whatever they want.” Li…
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…show or a tape of that segment know exactly what he said—that it would be cheaper to assassinate Chavez than to wage a costly war against him. But no matter how you slice this baloney, God makes it pretty clear that vengeance is his business and not ours. (See Romans 12:19–21). In a few brief moments, Robertson managed to flush over two thousand years of Judeo-Christian teachings down the toilet. As I witnessed that notorious segment on The 700 C…
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…storical sketch of the origin of the idea of Santa Claus, followed by a 12-minute original anthropological video of actual, believing children articulating the substance of their Christmastime convictions. These two accounts were utterly at odds. The children didn’t hesitate to delve into amazing speculations about how Santa may have once been an ordinary man, or preceded the evolution of the human race, or came from a supernova-ed star long ago….
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…Design] Prize are granted “one wish that would change the world” and an 18-minute “speech of their lives” with which to launch it. Armstrong’s wish came in the form of a call to action, the Charter for Compassion, a document signed by religious luminaries and ordinary people, that would urge others to “look at their tradition, reclaim it, and make religion a source of peace in the world, which it can and should be.” Since its launch the Charter ha…
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…r own religious consciences and beliefs. Representative Bart Stupak’s last-minute abortion amendment, supported by the direct lobbying of some Roman Catholic bishops, will have the effect of removing the possibility of abortion from the American health care system, even in cases where the health and life of the mother is at risk. It goes beyond current law and practice, and inserts the theological views of a vocal religious minority as a roadblock…
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…se who resort to YouTube, it would be more advantageous to watch the 7 1/2 minute video “Muslim Demographics” than to read (or try to read) Caldwell’s screed. Though he is not financed by the Christian Right, his message is identical to that of the initiators, writers, and promoters of “Muslim Demographics.” The tagline, which precedes this grossly deterministic, shrilly casuistic video, declares: “Islam will overwhelm Christendom unless Christian…
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…rs’ might be a misnomer in regard to a Terence Malick film, nevertheless a number of details of Tree of Life are revealed in the following essay. —eds. Since watching Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life a few days ago, I’ve been trailing my daughters: slowly, deliberately, unsure if I’m a cinematographer or a parent. In spite of my lifelong love of cinema (and teaching and publishing on the topic for the past decade plus), I rarely take video of m…
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…ated cultural capital. A Heavenly Host The first ninety seconds of the two-minute spot are devoted to a jauntily edited series of video clips taken from a car ride into the heart of Detroit. At the same time, a gravelly-voiced offscreen narrator directly addresses the audience about the apparent paradox of a gritty, hardscrabble city like Detroit—one “that’s been to hell and back”—knowing anything “about the finer things in life,” like luxury auto…
Read More…eran and resident of Indio, Calif., spoke plaintively in his allotted five minutes about how the 1996 law has cost him his home because he does not qualify for Social Security survivor benefits. Wallen’s husband, Tom Corrollo, died in March of leukemia after the couple’s 58 years together. “I wake up in the morning, and forget for a minute that he is not in the kitchen making coffee,” Wallen said. “Tom and I worked hard, and together we tried to l…
Read More…dge of Allegiance “don’t have to live here.” This was followed by the two-minute lightning round of atheist-bashing. Greg Gutfield claimed that atheists should just be thankful for not living in a Muslim country, where they might be killed for their beliefs, while Kimberly Guilfoyle, calling atheists “selfish” and “small minded,” accused them of wanting to be “catered to.” The segment ended, bizarrely, with host Bob Beckel claiming that the last…
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