Religion Dispatches
…here is more than one version of the Bible. Obama was quoting from the New International Version while Fox Nation was pointing to the King James Version to “debunk” him. This would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. Heh, indeedy, as they say, if for no other reason than that the NIV is one of the most popular scriptural translations for Evangelicals. That’s worth a double facepalm in my book. As Media Matters goes on to point out, factual accurac…
Read More…er wrote about here for RD. I wrote on Cook previously, citing her lack of international policy experience. Now more than ever, this post needs someone who has a handle on Islam, foreign policy, and other religious traditions. The people’s uprising in Egypt is a prime example why this ambassadorship needs someone who is more knowledgeable about religious traditions, diplomacy, and foreign policy experience. President Obama’s insistence on Cook may…
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…oro continue their hate-filled protests, other anti-gay groups like Exodus International are beginning to qualify their speech in very peculiar ways. Alan Chambers, president of Exodus, is reported to have said, “All the recent attention to bullying helped us to realize that we need to equip kids to live out biblical tolerance and grace while treating their neighbors as they’d like to be treated, whether they agree with them or not.” Focus on the…
Read More…tand. I had looked forward to the conference. The issue was important, the international roster of scholars participating was impressive, and my old friend and colleague, David Little, was to receive an award for his work on issues of religious tolerance around the world. He certainly deserved it. My schedule was tight but I could go for at least a day. But then I received the Free BYU email and I knew I could not attend. All my adult life I have…
Read More…Brown attended two events in Moscow. One was a joint meeting on changes in international adoption laws with the Duma’s committee on foreign affairs and its committee on family, women and children – whose chair, Yelena Mizulina, authored the ban on gay “propaganda” and the adoption bill. The other event was a roundtable discussion on “Traditional Values: The Future of the European Peoples,” hosted by the St. Basil the Great Foundation – an Orthodox…
Read More…in Uganda; he says his church was built with American money. Another pastor marvels that aid from American evangelicals increased threefold when his ministry began attacking homosexuality. Barber retweeted Ssempa’s note, and then praised Ssempa in a follow-up tweet, “Here’s a man not afraid of the international homofascist juggernaut.” Ssempa has in turn promoted Barber, retweeting a post promoting Liberty Counsel’s upcoming Awakening conference,…
Read More…y and community members.” In response, the Christian Educators Association International filed a motion to intervene in order to overturn the consent decree, arguing it amounted to a violation of teachers and administrators’ First Amendment free exercise rights to practice their religion with prayer. Noting that the battle has been a polarizing force in the community, a judge ruled in February that CEAI did not have standing and did not demonstrat…
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As the XIX International AIDS Conference comes to Washington D.C., the issue of condom use to prevent the spread of HIV will certainly be a central topic of debate. For many involved, the statement that Pope Benedict XVI made in 2010 still resonates. In a great leap forward for the Catholic Church, he said that using condoms to prevent the spread of HIV can be “a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuali…
Read More…ng article about a lawsuit filed in Arlington this week against Human Life International. The lawsuit alleges that Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, a Catholic priest and former president of HLI, sexually abused a woman who had turned to him for counseling—and that he did so under the guise of performing an exorcism. (According to diocesan officials, Euteneuer was not authorized to perform exorcisms.) The lawsuit does not name Euteneuer as a defendant, bu…
Read More…Action” (and, to a lesser degree the softening of Alan Chambers of Exodus International), the truth is, very little is likely to change unless they put their weight behind the existing movements for equality. Smid, who showed up on Hardball recently, admits that homosexuality ”cannot be repented of! People are, or they are not, homosexual… One cannot repent of something that is unchangeable.” Although Chambers’ change of heart isn’t quite as comp…
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