Religion Dispatches
Back in 2009, I called Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue promotion the “bus tour of destruction,” noting that her “worldview is not about creation and building,” but about “destruction and dominion.” For dominion to take place, I wrote, “the current order, especially the Democrats’ version of government order, has to fail. What most liberals, Christians included, don’t understand, is that destruction paves the way for a new order ordained by God accordin…
Read More
…those he believed were Islamist terrorist sympathizers. In many ways, this latest act of religious hatred, carried out in the name of cultural purity, signals the febrile acceptance of Osama bin Laden’s invitation to reignite the medieval holy war between Islam and the Christian West. While the violence is similar, any similarity is tactical, not substantive. The instances Breivik approvingly cites (say, the war in Bosnia) pre-date al Qaeda’s prom…
Read More…that in the individual states now facing budget crises—Minnesota being the latest example—the dynamic is exactly the same as in Washington DC: Everyone must sacrifice to balance the budget except for the only people in society who have continued to do very well during the Great Recession: the top 20 percent and the top 5 percent in particular. My question is why there is still no significant religious component in movements like US Uncut, which or…
Read More
…he languid, almost unbearable restraint of the music, particularly on this latest recording, constantly strains against the mythically dark stories of the characters’ individual lives. The understated, even mannered, songs tell hyperbolic character tales. In “Tennessee,” a girl-gone-wrong song, a gentle guitar and swaying melody gives voice to a character who learned to sing hosannas on my knees, was corrupted by the feel of whiskers on her cheek,…
Read More
…intellectual reasons, LGBT activists are loathe to base our rights on the latest scientific or pseudo-scientific data. This strikes me as wise. But as I talk about these issues with folks in the “movable middle,” I’ve noticed that the reluctant allies, semi-supportive family members, and more-or-less-convinceable moderates come to pro-gay conclusions for the reasons Lady Gaga identified: because gay people are born that way. So it does matter, po…
Read More
…to decoupling religious affiliation from views on reproductive rights, the latest survey from the Public Religion Research Institute yields data with significant implications for elections and election coverage. The misnamed “values voter,” a mythical beast whose voting values consisted primarily of opposition to legal abortion and marriage equality, is in a state of major decline. To the extent that the pro-choice/pro-life binary is a useful one…
Read More…an proposal to allow gay and lesbian clergy was defeated in the Presbyteries—with narrower margins than the two previous votes, until this year, when the margin finally favored gay and lesbian clergy. If these latest moves do not prove to be the ultimate tipping point for the Methodists, then we may well be witnessing the beginning of a trajectory toward inclusion similar to the Presbyterian journey….
Read More
…but Randian dogma, which holds a strict commitment to cutting government, promoting libertarian ideals, and allowing for the best to emerge, even if it occurs at the expense of the downtroden. . . . The real issue isn’t God with Paul Ryan’s budget, but his strict belief that one ideal and one political ideology will fix the crippling budget problems the U.S. faces. The American Values Network is run by the principals of the Eleison Group, a polit…
Read More…ed to him about how “dumb” Palin is. A former aide, Frank Bailey, has been promoting his negative book about Palin, Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin, released this week. Bailey’s book is also competing against Geoffery Dunn’s latest book, The Lies of Sarah Palin. With the unflattering books and criticism from her boss at Fox, you’d think that she would back off from running for president. Au contraire! Should Palin enter the race (and I am betting…
Read More
…dol” contestants, or breakout stars from “The Real Housewives of…,” or the latest YouTube sensation. The hundreds of articles and blogs lined up on Google News will likely grow in the week ahead, thanks in part to events that have begun to unfold in Dearborn—including Jones almost shooting himself in the foot in the parking lot of a local TV station, and his outraged response to a court order prohibiting his planned protest. It will get ugly, no d…
Read More