Religion Dispatches
…but not in a road-map-with-specific-details kind of way. It is not a long list of dos and don’ts. It is an idea that there is harmony in all of creation, including human creatures, our communities, and our relationships with each other, with the rest of creation, and with the Creator. It is also about doing that which will maintain that harmony. It is an ideal. The grounds for this idea are divine. In this respect and in this respect only, can we…
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…honor, Mormon humorist Matt Workman and I have come up with the following list of top 10 reasons LDS people should “take it down a notch for America” this election season: 1. The Holy Ghost gets a contact rash from extremist political rhetoric. 2. There’s no need to freak out over politics when you have a year’s supply of rice, beans, wheat, and texturized vegetable protein in your garage. 3. No matter how socialist President Obama allegedly gets…
Read More…Sells’ Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations, on a summer reading list for incoming freshmen. Carl Ernst, professor of Islamic Studies at UNC, in explaining why he advised selection of the book, said, “This book presents the Koran the way it is studied by beginners who approach it.” Of the inclusion of the book as summer reading, the school’s Chancellor, added, “thousands of Carolina students are better prepared to enter this University,…
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…a Victorian aristocrat commenting on the mob storming his place. Dawkins’ list does not exhaust the possibilities; creationists could also be indoctrinated or ideological, just to mention a few more options beginning with “I”. Indeed, I find that most creationists accept creationism because they think their religious beliefs demand it. Creationism is part of a package that is attractive to them for reasons that have nothing to do with science. Da…
Read More…ith-based office has issues, but this doesn’t appear to be one high on the list of offenses. How is this initiative more politically calculating or cynical or wrong than Karl Rove trying to get more African-Americans to vote Republican by doling out cash to Eddie Long? Gerson has recently co-authored a book on religion and politics with former Bush staffer Peter Wehner, now a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center. On CBN, the…
Read More…part in trying to coax Meeks to withdraw. But yesterday Crist added to the list of Democrats who have defected from supporting Meek when he secured support from the Palm Beach Democratic People’s Choice PAC. Just this morning he added the endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—suggesting, perhaps, a coalition of independents, moderate Republicans, and realistic Democrats brought together by their opposition to the tea party. At the same time, though…
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…ther alarmists; now, apparently, we can add the people of Oklahoma to that list. What is happening to our America? Why are we so afraid of an abstract Islam, far beyond the ability of extremists and radicals to harm us? Travel to other places in the world, like the Persian Gulf, Turkey, China, India, Brazil, and so on and so forth, and people are hungry with ambition, eager to embrace the economic opportunities that our country’s desire for global…
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…ion about the two books prior to this one I would have given you a laundry list of things I would have done differently. But Holy Ghosts was really a miracle for me in that it was the book where I found my true voice. This is my most personal writing to date. Though this book is a ghost story it is very much a memoir so the writing had to be personal. It’s a serious book, but anyone who knows me knows I’m a bit of a smartass and I make lots of mis…
Read More…xuality, which Rushdoony did. But I have argued that this rather sensationalist approach to examining the place of Reconstructionism in contemporary politics undermines efforts to see real influence. DeMint doesn’t advocate stoning, even though he aligns himself with Reconstructionists. He does advocate undoing decades of efforts to secure basic civil rights for gays and lesbians (and apparently for unmarried women as well). He does, it seems, su…
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…thought of that argument with my neighbor, and about my frustration, while listening to Boyd K. Packer’s talk at the General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints this past Sunday. I knew five minutes into this talk that it was going to set the bloggernacle abubble (as Joanna Brooks has already described here on RD). I put down the Sudoku puzzle I was fiddling with and paid attention. I was fascinated by it. And I was trans…
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