Religion Dispatches
…imagine that Bryan Fischer would drive the Hebrew prophets insane. In his latest column, the American Family Association’s director of issue analysis for government and public policy is incensed that Republicans would agree to a deal with President Obama to extend the Bush-era tax cuts. Why? Because extending unemployment benefits will add to the deficit: Conceding on this point is a sign that the GOP senatorial leadership still doesn’t get it. T…
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…solar cataclysms, seems more plausible than the prophecy put forth by the latest entry in the rush to doomsday, 2012: Time for Change. Rather than mass destruction, it predicts that in two years, we will abandon our smart phones, SUVs, and prescription drugs in favor of hoes, tandem bicycles, and ayahuasca. At the end of the Mayan calendar, two years from now, the whole world will supposedly start to resemble Burning Man. Psychedelics, Prophecies…
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…r new favorite spot, just in front of the sa’iy on the third floor. At the latest it was 8:00 a.m. The prayer begins at 12:00. What do you think, were we too early, or just in time? By two hours before the prayers, the chaos started and people began to jostle for nonexistent space. One guy who sat behind me actually had his feet pointing sideways away from the qiblah. Eventually he even faced to the back, because there really was no space for him…
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…aunching the Tea Party movement with his on-air rant about the government “promoting bad behavior” by offering foreclosure assistance. In another strange point, apparently in response to my statement that he’s trying to turn the movie into “a rallying cry for the conservative anti-government Christian right,” Beck asserted that Life clearly is a Christian movie, because it is a Christmas movie “with an angel and God.” Yes, it’s a Christmas movie,…
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…alist, performance artist, and mad scientist would all fit as well. In his latest work lies an invitation for not just cloistered specialists, but anyone and everyone, to participate. It used to be the exclusive domain of men of leisure to pursue God or science or art because they alone had the necessary combination of time and education, Keats argues, but now most people in the modern world have a modicum of both. Yet Keats, 39 years old, feels t…
Read More…and intelligent design. The terms of the law gave various appointed boards power to determine what textbooks are acceptable for adoption. Those who have been battling the creationists in this latest round didn’t hold out much hope for a victory, so the vote was quite a surprise. The whole drama reminds me of this old magazine cover from The Onion….
Read More…them. Too bad that the military’s own survey of the troops show that this latest scare tactic from DADT opponents for what it really is: a lie. Leaked results of the military survey showed that 70 percent of soldiers said they “expected positive, mixed or non-existent effects from lifting the ban.” Since the survey doesn’t show the results Perkins and others like Arizona Senator John McCain want – then the survey must be flawed. ”[T]his study was…
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…e pimped out on the internet by perverts. Now, social media has become the latest “sinful” activity. Perhaps Rev. Miller should get on the phone to Sarah Palin, and counsel her about her kids’ activity on Facebook. Bristol Palin found time from her “Dancing with the stars” practice to get on Facebook with her sister Willow to ride on a friend who had the chutzpah to say “Sarah Palin’s Alaska is failing so hard right now.” Willow’s response was to…
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…Catholic Worker, because priests had authored three of the articles in the latest issue—clearly more than she was looking for. This brings us to the election of Archbishop Dolan as president of the USCCB. As previously noted, the archbishop is a cordial and well-spoken man, so I’m sure he was gracious to his defeated opponent, Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson. But his election is not a good sign. As the New York Times mentions, this is the first ti…
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…ishers simply wait for the temporary order to expire. Reading parts of the latest round of outings Kiyimba shouts, “They do not understand what they are doing! They are ruining the lives of these young people. These are just kids, nineteen or twenty years.” In Uganda, Kiyimba says, “everybody knows everybody for four square miles.” When someone’s name appears in the paper, “life is over.” While he was in the U.S., three high school boys in Kiyimba…
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