Religion Dispatches
…on/fertilization (cf. Jeremiah 1:5; Genesis 1:26). Think about that for a minute: Tyndale is alleging that because it believes that Jeremiah 1:15 and Genesis 1:26 state that life begins “from the moment of conception/fertilization,” that by requiring it to cover ella and Plan B, which by its own admission “can” (i.e., just might) “cause the demise of an already conceived/fertilized human embryo,” the government is violating Tyndale’s right to fre…
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…son of God,” or “Jesus died for our sins.” Even people who wouldn’t for a minute think of themselves as uninformed biblical literalists interpret these statements with an uncontextualized, theological flatness that would move you right to the top of the class at Liberty University. This widespread ignorance among Christians—perhaps especially those who think of themselves as more progressive in their beliefs and practices—encourages cooptation by…
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…points to keep in mind as we try to understand how an amateurish fourteen-minute film produces such a dramatically disproportionate and wholly offensive counter-reaction. First, the storming of the US embassy in Iran was quickly hijacked by the hardline Ayatollahs who used confrontation with America as a pretext to seize control of the Iranian revolution and crush one-time revolutionary allies, such as liberals, Islamic socialists, Marxists, and…
Read More…o (find them on Facebook here). That segment begins at approximately the 2-minute mark. – eds President Obama was on Jay Leno’s show last night, and the late-night host asked him about Richard Mourdock’s statement about pregnancy caused by rape as a “gift from God” and something “God intended.” Obama responded, “I don’t know how these guys come up with these ideas. Let me make a simple proposition. Rape is rape. Rape is a crime.” He doesn’t know w…
Read More…the crowd. President Obama was absent from the convention except for a two-minute video speech before Biden’s talk. The vice president, however, was the right choice to follow up the staid and stiff Mitt Romney. While Romney didn’t seem to understand that the countless organ riffs were trying to get him to wrap it up, Biden reveled in his connection to the crowd. Unlike Romney, Biden was not an outsider to African-American life. Giving shout-outs…
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…modesty in their requests. With the military budget around $2 million per minute, there is no need to further feed that black hole in the economy—but feed it Ryan would. Kill-power is prized more highly than Head Start and Medicare. Enter the Real Catholic Social Teaching When the real Catholic social teaching enters the conversation it’s nothing less than a wake-up call to the modern world. The cumbersome title of the Vatican document signals it…
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…re collapsing in the arms of his arresting officers.With a bouquet of microphones in his face as he sat on the ground, he rallied to ask, “Why are you arresting a priest for trying to stop the killing of a baby?” A tearful Rick Scarborough asked God to protect Weslin in jail, and the video went viral. Violence by Another Name Weslin’s lifetime example of “nonviolent” protest, the Thomas More statement read, was now being used by the United States…
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…ay—was seen as an unnatural marriage between different species. Oh, wait a minute, I forgot the most laughable part of this whole ludicrous spectacle: that it’s a Mormon, Mitt Romney, who’s insisting that marriage has “always” been between one man and one woman. Right—except that Romney’s own great-grandfather had five wives, before the LDS church, under massive pressure and persecution, reversed its doctrine on polygamy. So, let’s see if I can to…
Read More…r—along with two conservative clergypeople whom I do not know. As the five-minute piece wound down, I was about to conclude, “OK, good job,” when Hagerty ended it with this zinger: Of course, conservatives say that the best blueprint for God’s kingdom on Earth does not spring from what you read between the lines of the Bible, but what you read in black and white. At this I spilled my coffee on a perfectly good shirt. Rev. Hagler had just pointed t…
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…he country were seeing 24/7 vigils. One of RRWC’s protesters stopped for a minute and began reading from the forty prayers Kromenaker and her staff had put in the windows—one for each day of the anti-abortion campaign: Day 1: Today we pray for women for whom pregnancy is not good news, that they know they have choices. Day 19: Today we pray for all pregnant women. May they be surrounded by loving voices. Day 30: Today we pray for women to throw aw…
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