Religion Dispatches
…as filed, President Wagner responded to the impending lawsuit by basically using a public invocation ceremony to say that anyone who isn’t a fundamentalist can go to hell. From the initial complaint [.pdf]: At the August 2009 Chancellor’s Opening Session, Wagner, acting as the District’s officer, agent, and official representative, invited the assembled faculty and staff to stand for an invocation “[i]n recognition of this country’s rich religious…
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…Paul Hill said that the biblical commandment against murder also “requires using the means necessary to defend against murder—including lethal force.” He went on to say that he regarded “the cutting edge of Satan’s current attack” to be “the abortionist’s knife,” and therefore his actions had ultimate theological significance. Bray, in his book, A Time to Kill, spoke to North’s concern about the authorization of violence by a legitimate authority…
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…s of waterboarding remain free—giving talks at universities, speaking on television shows, receiving medals of commendation, or sitting behind home plate next to Nolan Ryan cheering for the Rangers during the World Series. Case is in jail for allegedly using the same technique employed by the US military, the CIA, private contractors, and US allies. In a country in which Karl Rove can say that he is “proud” of using waterboarding against suspect…
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…radiocarbon dating on fibers from the Shroud. Undertaking separate studies using accelerator mass spectrometry in the laboratories of the University of Arizona, the University of Zurich and Oxford, these studies found, with 95% certainty, that the fabrication date of the linen of the Shroud was sometime between 1260 and 1390. Twelve hundred years too young, the Shroud is most likely a medieval creation. This is not to say the puzzle has been solve…
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…u can tell you are watching a cable show if the sympathetic characters are using drugs. This imagery is still not going to be appearing on the major networks. I also continue to be very interested in some of the representations of games in the series. For one thing, I am going to be really intrigued to see if Daddy Adama discovers his inner Tauran in New Cap City. He’s entering a world where people are playing at organized crime, but he has it in…
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…o the 21st century—and perhaps to justice. The language that the Church is using to defend the hierarchy (saying the Pope is the “leader in purification, reform and renewal that the church so very much needs” or, “the Pope’s letter to Irish Catholics was courageous”) is the language of a dying institution. These are people who trade in words, who argue incessantly in ecumenical dialogues about a word’s meaning. The problem is, the Vatican and its…
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…ching about social justice on Sunday mornings behind their pulpits, and refusing to get into the streets, to hold the hand of a dying person who has been pulverized by a car—or refusing to stand side-by-side with the antifa who were opposing the nazis, then they need to stop preaching about social justice on Sunday morning. My plea to white clergy is: Stop preaching empty rhetoric from the pulpit, if you’re not willing to get into the streets. Thi…
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…nted for 60% of employment in 1979 accounted for only 46% by 2012; and the number of persons not in the labor force is growing. While some are getting richer, the numbers tell us, middle income earners are hobbled by shrinking purchasing power, disappearing job opportunities, and increasingly out-of-reach education. This is problem enough for the many who work hard and can’t figure out why they’re “losing ground,” as Pew wrote. Add to that fears o…
Read More…d humiliating participants, taking pictures of them without consent, and causing one participant to suffer severe injuries from jumping out of a window to escape police violence. In August 2017, Lokodo ordered police to shut down all Pride events, stating that “No gay gathering and promotion can be allowed in Uganda,” media reports said. Austria: Court sets schedule for marriage equality The Constitutional Court ruled that a ban on same-sex couple…
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…her to acknowledge Robertson’s latest provocation. It bores me, and I feel cheapened even to think about it as I worry about one of my students who has not yet returned from a mission trip to Haiti. Still I could not resist clicking on a list of Robertson’s top ten greatest gaffes that I found in the blogosphere. It was amusing to ponder the rankings. Does Robertson’s feat of leg-pressing 2000 pounds (thanks to the diet shakes he was selling) dese…
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