Religion Dispatches
…caucuses with the Democrats, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders: “I am a strong advocate of a Medicare-for-all single-payer program.” Yes, Obama should apologize for misleading purchasers of cheap policies by insisting that if they like their current coverage, they can keep it. He needs to take his licks on that. But the right answer is not to cave on the fundamental principle of shared risk. The right answer is to say, “Yes, I spoke too broadly about keep…
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…paign against Amendment 1 in North Carolina. Referring to Bakker’s theological “feel-good stance” as “cheap grace,” Rev. Mark Creech of the Christian Action League attributed Bakker’s preaching of a “toxic and counterfeit gay-affirming gospel” to being injured by the church as a child. “In some ways he’s right,” Bakker told me in response. “It’s called empathy.” He continued: “Every time someone accuses me of cheap grace, I go back and say no, it’…
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…r, cable viewers got a taste of what it might be like to minister in “America’s prostitution capital” in the three-part series Hookers: Saved on the Strip. The show, which aired on the crime-and mystery-focused network Investigation Discovery, profiled Lobért and Hookers for Jesus and, in true reality docudrama fashion, the personal stories of three women who have been “saved.” In a segment she calls “Saturday Night Love,” Lobért brings her “takes…
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…. Such regulation might have required that a relief well be dug, as is the case in Canada. Such added “burdens” now appear to be sensible safeguards, given the catastrophic threat posed by the ongoing spill. And who will ensure that BP actually cleans up its mess? The federal government, of course. In coordination with many partners, it is the ultimate guarantor that BP will make good on its promise to restore environments, businesses, and individ…
Read More…t’s put that cheap argument to bed. At Patheos, Benjamin Corey shakes that cheap argument awake: Can we stop complaining about this bogus idea that American Christians are persecuted now? I mean, really. Can we stop? The world needs us to turn from ourselves and focus on this real persecution, because it’s evil and must be exposed and stopped. However, our own self-centeredness as Americans is getting in the way of the discussion on real anti-Chri…
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…ancis focus on his Easter message, and in the latest installment of “Papal Phone Calls,” Pope Francis called a sick seminarian and told him to “keep his chin up.” An analysis of the murder of a Congolese priest again focuses on anti-Christian attitudes and calls for a “new concept of martyrdom.” The focus of the site seems to be moving more toward being about Pope Francis and anti-Christian terrorism abroad, and less about the American church and…
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…nst Nazism and the Nat Turner rebellion against slavery; the Christian radical A. J. Muste calling Moses the organizer of “Brickmakers Union Number 1” and a pacifist Russian rabbi named Tamaret—wove them all into a new Telling of the tale of freedom. In that Telling, the then ongoing, even now unfinished, struggle of Black America for freedom was interwoven with the ancient story of the Israelites’ struggle to end their slavery under Pharaoh. Wher…
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…es would talk to me and let me do interviews. There were times when I made phone calls to inmates’ family members to let then know that visiting times had changed, to save them a long trip to the prison. I also visited the families of inmates with pastors and other volunteers to bring food, sometimes a gift a child’s dad had made. I basically become part of the lives of the people whose lives I wanted to document. How did a project you undertook f…
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…nians are Hamas or Hamas supporters.” But questioning the war—or the political calculation of the war—seems to be off-limits. Temple Israel’s Rosove told me, “I was very skeptical of Israel in the beginning although I didn’t come out publicly because whenever Israel is at war I keep my mouth shut.” Rosove said that later, after the discovery of Hamas tunnels, he changed his mind and believed Israel’s war was justified. Yet analysts on the Israeli…
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…e whole person. What we do as teachers is a sacred trust, and Coach Wooden did it better than any of us. He didn’t like being called “the Wizard of Westwood,” and he would have hated to be called a saint, so let us call him what he was, simply and with great pride: a teacher. And let us thank God for the life and teachings of John Wooden….
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