Religion Dispatches
…us Supreme Court called the restauranteur’s defense “patently frivolous.”) Today, there is a similar but not identical logic in some of the controversies on which I have previously reported, especially those of the baker who wouldn’t create a custom cake for a gay wedding and the foster care agency that refused to place children with a lesbian couple. The challenge today is how to distinguish between, on the one hand, attempts to license discrimin…
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…he money to honor my check? From some depositor who deposited his paycheck today… Fractional reserve banking violates the biblical principle against multiple indebtedness. When bankers violate this law (with the consent of the State), it leads to inflation and economic booms, followed by deflation and economic depressions. In buying and selling bonds and manipulating interest and reserve rates the Federal Reserve, according to North, fraudulently…
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…e the matters that are causing greatest damage to inter-communal relations today. That means, regrettably, devoting attention to conflict—not just the ‘jihad and terrorism’ you mention, but also the harsh attitudes toward criminal justice, gender politics and religious toleration that have been hardening of late in some ostensibly Islamic states. Another writer might well have struck a different balance, but that would simply have drawn criticis…
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…otection amendments that should cause us take special care about language. Today is not a day to crow about the “new civil rights movement”; it is not a day to say, as one lesbian interviewed on NPR said, “they saved the best for last.” In fairness, the person interviewed was telling an otherwise compelling story about the need for queer people to make common cause with low-wage workers. She and her spouse are small-time farmers in the Central Val…
Read More…sed, arguing that the law would have been “right” fifty years ago, but not today. “As jurisprudence world over is evolving, I think the judgement was not correct and probably at some stage they may have to reconsider,” he said. Bermuda: Court rules for binational couples The Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that Bermuda’s immigration policies promoted discrimination on the grounds of marital status or sexual orientation in violation of its H…
Read MoreToday is my last official day for completing local business before departure. I’ve balanced my checkbook and paid all of my bills except the ones that are automatically paid (which is about the same as being paid, when the checking account from which they are drawn has been balanced). I’ve taken out cash for travel with the knowledge that using ATMs abroad is always a great way to get the best rates. Yep that’s right. The U.S. always considers it…
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…a battlefield and shaking hands. Reconciliation was won either by actively promoting white supremacy (“At least we both share this superiority together!”) or else not discussing such a divisive topic. It is for this reason that Frederick Douglass looked at this situation with trepidation: “So sure as the stars shine in the heavens, and the rivers run to the sea, so sure will the white people North and South abandon their quarrels and become friend…
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…blican (62% to 31%). But what kind of political activism does spirituality promote? The culture of American spirituality tends to emphasize civic action through emotional self-development. Spiritual practitioners argue that we can best change the world through changing ourselves. If we properly govern our own emotional responses, lowering negative emotion while cultivating positive emotion we make our country a better place, one interpersonal inte…
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…ism Of Their Community!” Or, for short, “A Day That Ends In ‘Y’”. Oh Gosh, today ends in a y! And indeed, there is another installment, this time from The Washington Post: About 50 top leaders of major evangelical institutions will attend an invitation-only gathering this week to discuss the future and the “soul” of evangelicalism at a time when many of them are concerned their faith group has become tainted by its association with divisive politi…
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…accepting biological evolution like virtually all professional scientists today, writes of a private conversation he had with Morris one morning in the hotel cafeteria they both were staying at following their public debate the evening before. Miller questioned Morris with the aim of getting him to admit in private that this was all a charade, and that Morris was knowingly perpetrating a fraud on the public. Miller expected a “charlatan,” but dis…
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