Religion Dispatches
…eel that they can suffer some serious consequences if they speak out. In a number of cases, someone would start an interaction with me and then go, “Look. I can’t even speak with you.” They didn’t even want to go off the record. Have you received any backlash from some of the subjects profiled in the film? So far, there hasn’t been any backlash. These are very savvy politicians and they got to where they are by ignoring this issue. I would be surp…
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…ere not companionship-based. They were economic arrangements. Okay, that’s number 1. Number 2, let’s say that your wife didn’t provide you with a male offspring. A man could take another wife and another wife and another wife until one of them did. This is the “sanctity of marriage” that is being protected. Are you kidding me? Wow. Okay, so that’s Old Testament. Then along comes Jesus. Well for those of us who follow Jesus, I always like to point…
Read More…raguayan capital that took place ahead of the start of the Organization of American States’ annual meeting.” Russia: Activists Arrested at Banned Pride Events A number of activists were arrested for participating in pride events in Moscow, where officials had withdrawn permission for the event. Among them were a woman arrested for having a beard resembling that of Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst drawn on her face. A Moscow official had said permi…
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…istence of atoms or Adam? That last one may be a close call, but countless Americans do claim to feel a personal relationship with Jesus. How many claim to feel a personal relationship with evolution? For most Americans, God is more real and more important than evolution. Scientists fight religion at their peril. Religion addresses the great questions. Why are we here? Where did we come from? Why do we love, hate, or believe? To the extent that sc…
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…g weekend saw sales of more than $6 million in tickets. That’s the kind of number that will inspire others to try and figure out the formula for the faith-and-family blockbuster. Yet, with the cost of the film reportedly exceeding $30 million, it’s an open question whether or not the Left Behind reboot will get a second installment. The marketing problem of evangelical movies is still, stubbornly, a problem. The general audience doesn’t seem inter…
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…preparation, and visits to the sick. Bishop Ruiz elevated an extraordinary number of Maya men to the permanent diaconate, an ancient institution revived by Vatican II. In 2000, 341 of Mexico’s 800 deacons served the Diocese of San Cristobal, the largest number of deacons in any Catholic diocese in the world. Vatican suspicion of Bishop Ruiz’s liberationist pastoral strategy resulted in a failed attempt to remove him in 1993. The deacon program cam…
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…is alive and well and living in the radical spiritual fervor of a growing number of young Americans who have proclaimed an extraordinary religious revolution in his name. […] Christian coffeehouses have opened in many cities, signaling their faith even in their names: The Way Word in Greenwich Village, the Catacombs in Seattle, I Am in Spokane. […] ‘It’s like a glacier,’ says ‘Jesus-Rock’ Singer Larry Norman, 24. ‘It’s growing and there’s no stop…
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…st likely to indicate outright refusal to take a Covid-19 vaccine, while a number of other studies have also found that number hovering close to 25 percent. Journalists and academics alike have attempted to make sense of this discrepancy, pointing to existential fear, anti-intellectualism, and Christian nationalism as potential influences on American evangelicals’ vaccine antipathy. As a scholar of American evangelicalism and media, I am inclined…
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…not to … preventing birth.” But, as New York Times reports, under Trump a number of anti-contraception activists have been given prominent roles in the administration. They are moving not just to finalize a rule that would allow any entity to opt-out of the contraceptive mandate for any reason, which has long been on the bishops’ wish list, but have a history of attacking contraception in general. Katy Talento, who is now a White House domestic p…
Read More…upsurge. At the same time that anti-gay violence is growing in Africa, the number of African Christians, including Roman Catholics, continues to increase. Catholics now comprise twenty percent of the population of the entire continent, or 185 million people. It would, of course, be unfair to blame increasing anti-gay violence in Africa entirely, or even primarily, on the Roman Catholic Church, given the pivotal roles played in this crisis by some…
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