Religion Dispatches
…o the February 17 statement which simply reads “Press Release: Hinn Family News Reports confirmed by Ministry Executive.” The big D is nowhere to be found on the front page, but is on a subsequent page. The statement itself points out that “Pastor Benny Hinn and his immediate family were shocked and saddened to learn of this news on February 17 without any previous notice.” I doubt Hinn was shocked. The proceedings state that Benny Hinn moved out…
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…eated last week in the Senate. But there are reasons why it should be. The new Secretary of the Army, John McHugh, came to the Pentagon after serving as the representative of New York’s 23rd District, where last month conservative activists forced the Republican running for McHugh’s old seat, Dede Scozzafava, out of the race for being insufficiently conservative. McHugh’s own culture war credentials are solid, earning him kudos from religious righ…
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…Christian groups, especially separatists like the Pilgrims, was not just a new world; it was the new Israel. And its providential success derived from the nation’s fidelity to God’s unforgiving code. It is easy to be seduced by these beliefs into some very strange conclusions. Christianity, after all, is not Judaism, and the Christian religion begins with the assumption that it is not about nation-building or Kingdom-creation anymore. The “Kingdom…
Read More…ose either secretly or overtly a Taliban-like, religious, strict religious code upon all Americans, which is ridiculous.” Honor killings, forced marriages, female genital mutilation, and other abuses are “un-Islamic,” he said, adding that there is “no debate among serious Muslim scholars about that.” As far as fear-mongering that that Muslims seek to supplant the Constitution with shari’ah, Khan noted, “there is room for individual religious pract…
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…ry becomes even murkier. Take Trijicon, for example, chosen from a Deseret News listicle, “20 companies with religious roots.” Deseret News included Trijicon in the list because the company “inscribed coded biblical references on high-powered rifle sights used by the U.S. military.” That’s it. Other than the founder’s purported religious beliefs, its inclusion is arbitrary. Why not include Ebay, whose founder Pierre Omidyar is a Buddhist, or any o…
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…his wasn’t 100 percent.” As we’ve moved from an election dominated by fake news to a new Trump administration run on the principle of “alternative facts,” it’s worth taking some time to ponder what seems to be contemporary conservative credulity. We should certainly be reminded of the term “truthiness” that Stephen Colbert invented in October 2005 to capture some of the pronouncements of the George W. Bush administration. As he explained then, tru…
Read More…never be discovered embezzling money, enjoying kinky sex, or (The Da Vinci Code notwithstanding) fathering surprise children. It’s not necessary to label something a “cult” to understand the potential peril involved in looking to a living guru. However honest and virtuous that guru might be, she—like the rest of us—is susceptible to tripping and falling right up until the day she dies. What makes some folks willing and able to trust in a charismat…
Read More…tmont College in Santa Barbara recently wrote an open letter to the school newspaper describing the “doubt, loneliness, and fear” they felt while attending the school. One hundred fellow alums signed on. Instead of circling the wagons and strenuously defending the “homosexual practice” forbidden in its code of ethics, the school is reaching out. 51 of the school’s 92 faculty members responded, seeking “forgiveness for ways we might have added to y…
Read More…, over the years I have logged in many an hour listening like some wartime code breaker to folks like James Dobson, Chuck Colson, etc. For years, I was a near fanatical listener to Hank “The Bible Answer Man” Hanegraaff of the Christian Research Institute, tuning in like clockwork to his show weekdays 7:00-8:00 p.m. on Washington DC’s WAVA 105.1. Still, as much as I appreciated (and occasionally even found inspiring) these programs’ message of sel…
Read More…n), opened an office in Nairobi, around the time that Kenya was debating a new constitution that included controversial addendums to its penal code regarding abortion. The ACLJ pledged when it opened in Nairobi to lend financial support to help defeat the constitution. It has also supported the criminalization of same-sex intimacy. Ann Kioko, president of African Organization for Families and one of the main organizers of the gathering in Nairobi,…
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