Religion Dispatches
…bitch ass! By default, too!” When Jesus and his friends decide to create a community garden (to grow weed) the vacant lot they choose is littered with trash and the soil is not at all appropriate for farming. However, in the theopoetics that Jesus deals in (biblical Jesus as well as comedy Jesus), where metaphor and symbolism are essential teaching tools, the garden represents more than healthy food or a place to grow weed, it is a transformation…
Read More…ian” community as well as those in their 50s and 60s. “There is a whole hidden community living in Britain… now is the time to come out.” Quarishi’s activism has come at a cost: The documentary opens with the 32-year-old, from Southall, west London, reading several abusive and threatening emails. “You call yourself a Muslim? You should be ashamed of yourself, and killed,” one says. “You think I don’t know where you live? You think I don’t know who…
Read More…d to imagine it. Trump has moved on from his “little cracker” reference to communion to proclaiming the Bible is his favorite book. Although he has compared himself to Billy Graham, because of Trump’s propensity to claim magical healing powers—for America, if not for someone’s bum knee or cancer—a closer analogy might be Benny Hinn. While some evangelicals are cringing that their co-religionists adore this xenophobic, racist bully, there is some e…
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…portrayed in the media. When evangelical pollster George Barna gave respondents a straightforward test of standard evangelical beliefs, he found the same percentage. Although Moore probably wouldn’t agree to those numbers—the Southern Baptist Convention still counts itself as having 15 million members—he is telling his people to stop thinking that America is going their way. It’s clearly not. Don’t try to fit in, he tells his flock. “We’re not to…
Read More…sia this week,” according to a story at Lapido Media. Basic liberties are being tested in the highest court, creating precedents that could affect the delicate religious balance in the majority Muslim country. The two cases will test the Federal Court bench as they pit Islamic enactments against the country’s Federal Constitution which is essentially secular. At the heart of the two cases is a contest between civil secular federal law, and Islamic…
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…ral who were. They speak about the obvious concerns––being accepted by the community, being fair, objective, respectful, etc. Their solution to avoiding these issues was to bring in members of the community representing all the major world religions as well as parents. Everyone was invited to sit at the table and give input and everyone felt heard. I am convinced this was the most important part of this course being successful from day one. The ir…
Read More…government endorsement of religion. The Army’s “spiritual fitness” test is coming under fire from church-state organizations who claim it is unconstitutional. Despite the new Republican majority in the House, the religious makeup of the 112th Congress is about the same as the previous one. Like the rest of the country, Congress has a majority of Protestants (56.8%) but nonbelievers are underrepresented—there are no “nones.” The man who discovered…
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…ip Arabella, all the way up to the noble deeds of an actor-turned-president (their favorite president, truth be told) who enjoyed using Winthrop’s “city upon a hill” image (there is no “shining” in the original) while completely forgetting Winthrop’s caution that God will only bless a righteous (i.e., egalitarian and humble) commonwealth. We should have learned a long time ago that people claiming to be God’s elect are invaria…
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…can already identify the loser: the free exercise clause. While these protests do undoubtedly involve the principle of free speech, it would seem just as obvious that they also implicate the free exercise clause. The rhetoric of the church’s protests at military funerals (“God hates fags,” for example) clearly suggests a religious obligation to protest against gay rights. The free exercise clause of the First Amendment prohibits government—origi…
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…—an obvious forerunner to Charlie—is a kind of ritual in which adolescents test religious worldviews by provoking an encounter with the supernatural. This perspective allows us to understand how claims about the nature of the game affect its appeal. The decision to summon Charlie is not based in the logic of spiritual good and evil, but rather of enchantment and disenchantment. Figures such as Pat Robertson have claimed Charlie is a demon, which o…
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