Religion Dispatches
…in Columbus, Ohio. They all discussed the biblical and moral imperative to welcome the stranger; Nathan noted how the push for immigration reform “has united the religious community, even for those of us who consider ourselves conservatives.” Many of those conservatives, though, support immigration reform, but not for gay and lesbian people. The Democratic Party was criticized after the midterms for, critics charged, punting on reaching out to “pe…
Read More…ropaganda never dies—it simply moves to a new location when it’s no longer welcome in its old home. David Bahati channeled Anita Bryant as he patiently answered Maddow’s probing questions, insisting that there is a “huge problem” in Uganda from foreigners who are spending money to “recruit” children into homosexuality. He says his bill, that includes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” is simply a way to “protect the children” from th…
Read More
…hbeck describes the medical benefits of his favorite drugs—for example, he promotes iboga, an African root bark with hallucinogenic properties, as a cure for drug and alcohol addiction. Such theories might be convincing if they came from someone other than Pinchbeck, who borrows haphazardly from Western science when it validates his claims, but seems to distrust it as an all-encompassing worldview. The film’s subtitles proudly announce the PhDs ea…
Read More…population of what is essential to “human happiness and flourishing.” It would seem to me that if Mohler and others value marriage as much as they say they do, they would welcome the effort of any group of people who want to revere that institution and rebuild it to its former greatness….
Read More
…other sexually transmitted infections than is an exclusive focus on condom promotion. Regrettably, however, many scientists, HIV prevention educators, and AIDS activists are so fixed on condom promotion that they do not give due attention to the risk avoidance that is possible to achieve through abstinence outside marriage and mutual, lifelong fidelity within marriage.” Who, one asks, are these scientists who believe in the “exclusive focus on con…
Read More
…ust go along with this story. As a fellow Brooklyn Catholic put it, it’s a welcome change to have a Catholic bishop portrayed as something other than a sex-abuse enabler. And, as historian Philip Jenkins observes, contemporary US anti-Catholicism is fueled by liberal Catholics like me saying things about their church that Protestants haven’t said since Vatican II. Nevertheless, if we’re going to resurrect “Dagger John,” there are a few little deta…
Read More…aid of the LDS October statement, the new CHI does not offer institutional welcome or affirmation to LGBT people who want to live full lives as LGBT people. It maintains that “homosexual behavior” is sinful. It does not create space for LGBT Mormons to attend church on Sunday with their partners, as I am able to do. But it does show institutional LDS movement on LGBT issues, most crucially—one hopes—for LDS LGBT young people who may have been brou…
Read More
…od in all this? Isn’t it just such a time as this that even skeptics would welcome a benevolent and powerful God? Yet God has not intervened to prevent or stop the flow of oil. Indeed, God seems just as powerless as the rest of us. Paradoxically, it may be God’s lack of power that revives us. One might imagine that if God is powerless, then God suffers along with us, and even with the poor miserable creatures poisoned by the oil. Whether God suffe…
Read More…u are allowed to disagree with your leaders and say so out loud. They even welcome it.” In this respect, those Anglican traditionalists who have chosen to break away from the Anglican Communion exhibit behavior one typically finds in American Fundamentalist circles. Like other religious and fiscal conservatives, they can be quite adept at utilizing the Internet, Christian media outlets, grassroots organizations and other vehicles to spread their m…
Read More…with the children. It seems that no part of who she knows herself to be is welcome in this world, or for that matter by God, because, after all, the Bible is clear about the status of women. Right? I still remember when I first discovered that the text in Ephesians that tells wives to be submissive is immediately preceded by a command that Christians be subject to one another with no reference to gender at all Not only is this text explicit that t…
Read More