Religion Dispatches
…ng ago left the animals, two by two, out of their vision of Heaven. We want our burgers with no blood, we want our body of Christ wafer-thin, and we’d prefer if Heaven posted a “No Chickens Allowed” sign. But what will those who pass the pearly gates eat, and will they say a blessing? Oh, and Bad Boyz Cutz? Back open for business as of last Monday, all charges dropped….
Read More…s Gideon’s Fleece bus tour of earlier this year did not seem to give her a sign to run, and now the footage resembles highlights from a retirement reel, rather than the fodder for a crop of Palin 2012 commercials. Put this together with the doubling down of conservatives like Ann Coulter, who said this about Palin on the O’Reilly factor: She is “The One to a certain segment of right wingers”, and “No conservative on TV will criticize Palin, becaus…
Read More…s and tax credits), in addition cutting the Department of Education: Perry promoted school choice: vouchers charter schools Gingrich advocated the equivalent of Pell grants for K-12 Paul says there are some things the government can do: like “giving tax credits for people who opt out of public schools.” Romney supports “school choice” and threw in an attack on teachers’ unions for good measure Huntsman says he’s “actually done something on this, […
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…eared. Just that it’s changing. The Muslim Brotherhood is the most visible sign of a possible role for religion in Egypt’s new political landscape. There are, however, several factions within the Brotherhood, and serious divisions on strategy. The old guard does not want to form a political party, for example, but the new Freedom and Justice Party is largely made up of independent Muslim Brotherhood members, and younger Brothers have sought to for…
Read More…efore “constitutional conservative” became a buzzword, the religious right promoted misinformation about the First Amendment, particularly the Establishment Clause, arguing that the separation of church and state was a “myth” perpetrated by “activist judges.” Marge Baker, Executive Vice President for People For the American Way Foundation, also part of Constitutional Progressives, said this is remains a critical issue that the coalition will conti…
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…cy, the camera circles them as they bend and reach. They can give a subtle sign if they don’t wish to be touched, but one girl who is open to the contact is extended in child’s pose, the front of her body pressed against the floor, arms reaching out. The teacher comes up behind her and gently presses down on her sacrum—a Latin word derived from the Greek hieron osteon or “sacred bone”, from the belief that the soul resides there. I have known the…
Read More…es ago in the New Testament letters of James” and figure “prominently as a sign of the coming economic Armageddon.” The book is a favorite of Glenn Beck’s, who declared that it exposes what he imagines to be linkages between the global financial crisis and the coming “new world order.” (Jeremiah last year called President Obama a “dangerous person” because he is a “globalist” heading the country toward “socialism.”) Lest you leap to any conclusion…
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…n which only a tiny percentage of adults in the U.S. adhere to—should be a sign that Catholic health care is a big player, yes? Well, it turns out there’s quite the backstory there. Haley’s use of the phrase “Catholic ghetto” is not cheap hyperbole, if you consider the history of Catholics in the United States. The US Catholic hospital system grew up in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries; largely under the care of women’s religio…
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…plaints coming. * homo-intimacy in the ex-gay world is far more suspect among lesbians, for whom excessive emotional closeness is considered a sign of lesbianism even in the absence of a sexual relationship….
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…h religious myths are singular; they constitute the thing everybody has to sign on to in order to be a member of the movement. In Tertullian’s day, however, most Christians agreed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God; but as for what that actually meant, well, that was one of the things Christians argued most vehemently about. Those arguments led to the emergence of “orthodoxy” and “heresy” in time. And it took a very long time to figure out which…
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