Religion Dispatches
…at the song is saying. Small wonder that the band’s raucous, hand-clapping new single (and another highlight of its Bonnaroo performance) bears the title “Gobbledigook.” Since its release, dedicated followers of Sigur Rós have been filling Internet discussion boards trying to parse the song’s lyrics. They may be missing the point. Sigur Rós seems to realize that what gives music and musical performance its power is something untranslatable, someth…
Read More…ne time managed Bachmann’s failed presidential campaign, weighed in at Fox News: Having worked for Congressman Bachmann’s campaign for president, I am fully aware that she sometimes has difficulty with her facts, but this is downright vicious and reaches the late Senator Joe McCarthy level… The Republican Party, which John McCain led as our nominee in 2008, is going to become irrelevant if we become the party of intolerance and hate. The party fo…
Read More…ligious freedom. In the terms of section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, these corporations are called “churches,” their “integrated auxiliaries,” and “conventions or associations of churches,” where churches are defined as a “subset of IRC 501(c)(3) organizations organized and operated for religious purposes.” Necessarily, such entities are artificial or fictive persons under the law, subjects capable of claiming rights and bearing respon…
Read More
…n. They went 78 percent for Romney, up from 74 percent for McCain. The bad news for the Republicans is that, according to Pew, the evangelical share of the population continues to erode—from 21 percent in 2007 to 19 percent in 2012—while the number of the religiously unaffiliated is rising—from 16 percent to 20 percent over the same period. In other words, “nones” and evangelicals are equivalent in numbers. One explanation for this change in Ameri…
Read More…e cis-het patriarchy and want the world to receive it as a universal moral code. They would be just as happy if you didn’t notice that they can only provide one particular interpretation of the gospel, rather than an objective and unchanging truth. To boot, it’s an interpretation that isn’t even fully shared by other conservative religious groups, nor is it without controversy even within the Southern Baptist Convention. Take, for example, the que…
Read More…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
…his wasn’t 100 percent.” As we’ve moved from an election dominated by fake news to a new Trump administration run on the principle of “alternative facts,” it’s worth taking some time to ponder what seems to be contemporary conservative credulity. We should certainly be reminded of the term “truthiness” that Stephen Colbert invented in October 2005 to capture some of the pronouncements of the George W. Bush administration. As he explained then, tru…
Read More
When news broke this past Friday that a controversial Instagram photo would result in Jerry Falwell, Jr. taking an “indefinite leave of absence” as president of Liberty University, it was only the latest in a string of incidents with Falwell at the center of the public spotlight. The offending picture features Falwell holding a dark-colored drink (which he calls “black water”) and his arm around a female friend’s waist. Falwell’s pants are unzipp…
Read More
…t in technology. The principalities are the Bible’s relevance to the daily news. A friend remembers that “wherever he went, Stringfellow had a newspaper in one hand and his Bible in the other.” This kind of talk can turn the world upside down. We are surrounded by beasts and dragons right out of the book of Revelation, and we fan their flames with our faith. Consequently Stringfellow’s God is not just a character to whom we must defer to for the s…
Read More
…hich he stated, referring to the capture of Somali warlord Osman Atto, ‘I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.’” According to Rodda, Mansfield said that “Gen. Boykin gave many in the field just the kind of warrior code they needed to fulfill their duties with moral passion.” In an extensive, and highly-documented, review of Mansfield’s Ten Tortured Words, Rodda, pointed out that the book was…
Read More