Religion Dispatches
…t him as their own. According to my research assistants who have been following jihadi-related Twitter feeds, there was online cheering minutes after the act. When the attacker’s identity was revealed, one tweet stated that Lahouaiej-Bouhlel must have been “a lone wolf that answered the call of jihad by attacking the kuffars (‘blasphemers’).” Others conjectured that he had served as a jihadist in Syria before returning to France to commit the act….
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…y. Here’s how Anderson had responded to the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida: “These homosexuals are a bunch of perverts and pedophiles, that’s who was a victim here, a bunch of disgusting homosexuals at a gay bar,” he said. He later added: “The good news is that at least 50 of these pedophiles are not going to be harming children anymore. The bad news is that a lot of the homos in the bar are still alive, so they’re going to contin…
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…who think they’re saving America from Barack Obama’s “war on religion”) to win a state like Florida in November. Those voters heard from Gingrich that Romney, like Obama, engaged in a war on religion by depriving elderly Jewish nursing home residents their kosher meals. Mind you, for Gingrich’s last, desperate stand, it seemed a long shot that many Republican voters in Florida would care that in the course of cutting the Medicaid budget (something…
Read More…, who might normally be Democrats. We saw this happen in California and in Florida in 2008. Florida and California both went for Obama but both states also passed marriage amendments, because a lot of the same people who voted for Obama also voted for marriage. The strategy is that there are enough people who are upset over this issue, who feel that Obama and the Democrats have gone too far, that this may be the deal breaker. Jackson was initially…
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…ptist Convention USA Inc. says it has no “official” position on any issues with regards to homosexuality, in keeping with the polity’s mission not to make any authoritative statements on behalf of its constituency. However, it states: “if you were to take a poll of traditional, missionary Black Baptist Churches, it is very safe to say that you will find a majority of them: Against homosexuality/lesbianism as a legitimate expression of God’s will….
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…t-wing religion, and self-hatred before. And I’ve seen it transformed by unflinching truth and wise love. While I was working on a doctorate in theology I volunteered in a high school human relations program run by the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) in Los Angeles. Every summer in NCCJ’s Brotherhood/Sisterhood program, two hundred idealistic teens attended a week of camp in the nearby mountains, taught by volunteer profession…
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…ey that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary.” Yes, change your world. One of our Founding Fathers, Thomas Paine, said, “We have it within our power to begin the world over again.” We can do it, doing together what no one church could do by itself. It’d be a stretch to say Reagan’s “evil empire” rhetoric defined my faith, worldview, or burgeoning political sensibi…
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…ically, are doing good. Take this Orlando Sentinel headline from October: “Orlando-area Faith Leaders Grapple With Far-Right Views After Capitol Riot Puts Spotlight on Christian Nationalism.” If faith leaders are “grappling” with the far-right in their midst, then they can’t be complicit, right? And surely there aren’t faith leaders who are fomenting Christian nationalism? (To be clear, yes, yes there are.) To be sure, the framing here tacitly adm…
Read More…one news source described a recent outburst: “Hundreds of ultra-orthodox Jewish men delayed takeoff of a transatlantic flight by refusing to sit next to women, and then caused chaos once it was airborne [by standing in the aisles for the entire flight and refusing to occupy their seats].” Obviously a congested plane aisle isn’t the end of the world (although one can imagine it might be a safety issue in some situations), and the news reports have…
Read More…g the Affordable Care Act under claims of religious freedom. While I agree with Loewentheil’s points, I wish to add that what this protest shows, as do many other broader conservative religious movements, is that it isn’t a question of women’s rights versus religious freedom, as some reporters have framed it, and it isn’t actually an issue of religious freedom at all. Rather, these culture war battles are about trying to impose one’s own religious…
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