Religion Dispatches
…ween conflicting religious attitudes, and the freedom at stake is not only freedom of expression but freedom of religion. For while Luther was surely engaging in offensive speech, he was also exercising a right of freedom of conscience, which included the right to dissent from Catholic orthodoxy. Debased though Luther’s rhetoric may have been, there was no way to be a reformer without offending the hegemon. It’s a story as old as religion. Orthodo…
Read More…abstinence education in our children’s schools—their devotion to religious freedom goes out the window. They would force Catholics and others who have beliefs rooted in their faith to sacrifice the teachings of their faith to the mandate of federal bureaucrats. That’s the same Romney who pledged, while he was running for governor of Massacusetts in 2002, “I respect and will protect a woman’s right to choose. This choice is a deeply personal one. W…
Read More
…ished around the Man as it ignites and burns, once it collapses people are free to surge toward and dance around the pyre.) My nieces puzzled over this for a moment, and soon realized this anonymous individual was indeed shouting “theater” in the midst of a rather “crowded fire.” When they told me this story later that night, I immediately seized on it as the title of what was at the time my dissertation as I thought it spoke brilliantly and provo…
Read More
…s on the wryly-named ”Free Jinger” forum, a discussion board dedicated to “freeing” Jinger Duggar, one of the daughters of the Quiverfull Duggar family featured on reality TV show 18 Kids and Counting. Commenters there and elsewhere followed news of Chmielewski’s pregnancy, at first with light snark directed at this exemplar of Quiverfull conviction, and then growing concern as Chmielewski described mounting complications: she reportedly measured…
Read More
…agenda; with only a few dissenting voices pointing out that any assault on free speech, even the free speech of an anonymous cabal, threatens the rights of all. The vandalism of the Guidestones seems to be a classic case of an eccentric and lofty idea under assault by the hoi polloi. In fact, a letter from the monument’s benefactors printed by the Elberton Granite Finishing Company predicted just such a scenario. They ask that the people of Elbert…
Read More…as Obama did, but I apologize to both for an unintended slur.” But, as the Free Times reports, Knotts wasn’t quite as repentant in the moments after uttering his slur. With a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face outside a Columbia bar, Republican S.C. Sen. Jake Knotts called Lexington Rep. Nikki Haley, an Indian-American Republican woman running for governor, a “raghead” several times while explaining how he believed she was hiding her…
Read More
…of whom is Vice President Mike Pence, infamous for the anti-LGBT Religious Freedom Restoration Act he championed while governor of Indiana), should indeed prompt LGBT equality advocates to remain on guard, Kreis said. Just because this particular “religious liberty” executive order didn’t explicitly target the LGBT community doesn’t mean Trump won’t sign another order that does. “I think it’s better to be on guard, and to be proactive, than to wis…
Read More
…h or equality of outcome is not a popular political position. There are no free rides, and that entails that some—perhaps most—are going to lose. It’s really the same logic that my students advocated for against the tendency towards universalism in Origen of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa. I would suggest the reason they had so much trouble with the prospect of universal salvation had more to do with cultural assumptions rather than religious one…
Read More
…identity. Tibetan monks believe that they must have internal autonomy: the freedom to establish their own policies, to manage their own affairs, and not to be subject to ideological pressures or other forms of interference from the state. In Tibet today it is precisely the issue of autonomy—the freedom to opt for a Buddhist way of life and to establish such a way of life institutionally—that is the greatest source of conflict between the clergy an…
Read More
…, is more than a little too rich. Which does not mean that Limbaugh gets a free pass. The Christian injunction against judgment gives no exemption from being held accountable for one’s misdeeds, even in death. Christians hold back on judging others because we are taught that all—all—have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. You and I might be able to stand taller before God than Rush Limbaugh, but so can an ant over an aphid when viewed fr…
Read More