Religion Dispatches
…society that told him he was worthless and would never have happiness because of how he wanted to use his penis. At his core, Shepard was human and he needs to be embraced in all of his flaws. Shepard can still be a hero to the gay and lesbian community, but he’s more effective when his complete life is celebrated, not just his myth. As Christians especially, we can change society by acknowledging that Jesus, too, had a penis. Chances are good th…
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…Schmitt wrote, not only because the term carried traces of its historical use in discussions of God but, importantly, because the “systematic structure” of the term was theological, evoking a metaphysics of the state that functioned as a kind of religious belief. Hitler’s totalitarian power, then, involved a “secularized” version of the miraculous: the Führer’s proclamations cut through the constraints of law just as the divine’s interventions de…
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…e, this capacity has been buried beneath layers of prejudice and fear. Because all of us are products of the same divine benevolence, and because our divine creator is a real power moving within all of us to nurture what is good, we can enter conflicts in the hope that we can reach and connect with our opponents’ best selves, that fundamental part of who they are that is responsive to the needs of others. This is not to say that evil systems and f…
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…urn our adolescents gay.” Gladys Feliz, who is a member of the Dominican House of Deputies, on Wednesday used an anti-gay slur in a tweet she wrote in response to the vandalism of a banner outside of a school in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo with Brewster’s name on it. “For the defenders of the U.S. ambassador, the Spanish language dictionary calls you faggot,” wrote Feliz in another tweet. “I hope you are satisfied!” Cardinal Nicolás de…
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…ards, in thinking that religions make use of stories to convey moral lessons? What if, instead, stories make use of religions, for reasons all their own? While particular mythologies rise and fall, the use of narrative as a meaning-making machine endures—perhaps because we’ve always believed more in language than in God by any name. This review originally appeared in BookForum….
Read More…appoint as head of the local diocese a bishop who helped cover up sexual abuse allegations against a the priest who abused Cruz and hundreds of others . Philippines: Gay priest speaks out against bishops’ anti-marriage-equality letter Catholic Bishops in the Philippines released a harshly anti-gay pastoral letter in August. The August letter from the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines attacked same-gender unions, saying they are “not a…
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…rent goal: restoration. “If you think restoration is impossible that’s because you’re lazy because you’re not willing to read, you don’t read books.” Echoing DeMuth’s concerns about “fertility,” Hazony speaks directly to the—largely male—audience: Young men: get a young woman, join a church, go to a place where the great inheritance is being handed down, […] or join a synagogue. If there is no church like that in your state, move to a different st…
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…ough the [preschool]. The playground surface cannot be confined to secular use any more than lumber used to frame the Church’s walls, glass stained and used to form its windows, or nails used to build its altar.” But while Gorsuch’s opinion suggests that he would support even direct state subsidization of religious activities, Sotomayor argued that directly subsidizing a house of worship—even for ostensibly non-religious expenses such as playgroun…
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…eat others the way we want to be treated. How my church, like many others, promotes making a sacred, lifelong bond between couples who love each other. That we promote marriage and work to strengthen families of same-sex couples just as heterosexual ones. For me, the many scripture passages on love and commitment, on honesty and fidelity, on compassion and understanding, and on the importance of parents caring for each other and their children are…
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…uses of the term “Pharisee” as a synonym for “hypocrite,” where Christians use Pharisee to accuse each other of being duplicitous or overly concerned with the letter of the law. Likewise, whether deliberately or not, “Give us Barabbas” weaponizes an episode from the New Testament and depicts a certain segment of voters as a misguided or morally deficient crowd—a crowd that, historically, has been portrayed as Jewish. Blaming the election of Trump…
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