Religion Dispatches
…he worst abuses of the primary season. Among them: Hillary Clinton said we need to “inject faith into policy” (CNN/Sojourners town hall 6-26-07). Barack Obama asked a congregation to help him “become an instrument of God” and join him in creating “a Kingdom right here on Earth” (10-17-07). Mike Huckabee tells a crowd: “What we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards” (1-14-08). 6…
Read More
…h, they affirmed that “mature Christian women” are obliged to disciple the next generation of Christian wives, training them in matters of submission and headship, in order to provide a legacy of “fruitful femininity.” The speakers at the conference were the A-list of complementarian celebrities: Pastor John Piper, Christian radio personality Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor and antifeminist author Mary Kassian,…
Read More
…’s questioning of Colson’s fitness for a PCM, wrote: “Oh, please. Hope you never need redemption.” How are we to understand the concept of redemption? Of the five definitions in the American Heritage Dictionary, three are economically related: the paying of an obligation (government bond); the recovery of something pawned or mortgaged; the “deliverance upon payment of ransom.” The final definition is “salvation from sin through Christ’s sacrifice….
Read More
…associate “health” with a very specific image of bodily integrity and wellness—one that’s epitomized by the bodies on the covers of magazines like Health or Men’s Health. This particular image masquerades as a universal norm. But what does it really mean to be healthy? Can a person who is living with a disability still be healthy? (I would say, of course!—though disabled bodies are not typically associated with good health in dominant commercial,…
Read More…as we were born to be. For freedom –– not happiness –– is the precious stone. One cannot cling to happiness; it submits to no clinging. To be free, to live and love in your homeland, this is the most precious stone against which all others fade by comparison. We now know that, whatever organised religion may say, our way of loving is right. No holy communion is more holy than the human communion of two people in love. I believe that we can honest…
Read More
…nt that right worship of God is directly equated with dealing justly with one’s fellow humans (witness the Isaiah 58 text used by Sharon Watkins, who preached at the national prayer service held on the day after Barack Obama’s inauguration). The biblical Sabbath and Jubilee keynotes—keynotes also struck by Jesus right at the start of his public ministry—contain within them God’s main message to us about maintaining just community. And what “procla…
Read More
…ct when it comes to the church’s relationship to the world. This is underlined by Benedict’s revision of the documents of the Second Vatican Council, a move that mirrors the thinking of Marcel Lefebvre, the founder of the renegade church with whom these bishops are attached. Benedict makes it clear who is part of this more tightly circumscribed church and who is not. While many people are troubled by the Pope’s embrace of Holocaust-deniers and sad…
Read More
…iticized the surviving partner’s speech for having “exalted” gay marriage. Hong King: Court orders partial recognition for same-sex couple married in New Zealand A civil servant who married his same-sex partner in New Zealand won a court ruling against the government to obtain civil service welfare benefits for his husband. The same ruling denied the couple’s quest to file taxes jointly. …
Read More…sure softball questions, few dissident voices, and reverent talk about the number of ciboria necessary to serve communion in baseball stadiums. And, we are all supposed to know what ciboria are (for the record, they are the goblet-shaped metal vessels that hold the hosts—that is, the wafers—used for communion). Catholic terminology is about the only thing used liberally in these exercises. Television hosts like Tim Russert fairly swoon over their…
Read More
…sorta how James Ray set up his spiritual Ponzi scheme, right? He knew someone who knew someone who did “Indian sweats” and presto and voilà, Ray is taking people on spiritual retreats at 10K a head and then people start dying. So, experts have to be brought in to figure out what happened. No Indians mind you, just experts. And the truth is, we don’t want to be experts. Why? Because we know there is no such thing as Indians, redskins, warriors, bra…
Read More