Religion Dispatches
…conservative sectors of the LDS world. And whereas one usually hears valiant reports on the Mormon grapevine of LDS humanitarian responses to major natural disasters, I’m getting at this point only an eerie silence on flood-ravaged Pakistan, which is 98% Muslim. To make matters worse, a local Southern California LDS Church representative who had pledged to join seventy other religious leaders at Friday’s interfaith press conference against Is…
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…at’s been sawing away at the democratic foundations of the country for decades: The Christian Right. But Johnson, like much of the Christian Right itself, is also profoundly influenced by fringe Christian thinkers and movements that few reporters and analysts of U.S. politics are familiar with. Since the Speaker’s office became a possibility, Johnson has kept mum about the most controversial issues. Fortunately, he’s left a decades-long trail that…
Read More…n are anything but “loosed.” A March 2010 study by the Closing the Gap Initiative found that the median wealth for single black women ages 36-49 is five dollars. Five dollars. Damn. The wealth of a single white woman in the same age range is $42,600. If a black woman marries, it doesn’t help that disparity much either. A married black woman’s net worth is $31,500. Married white women: $167,500. This is story, folks, not the lack of marriage for bl…
Read More…n culture is “exceptional”—exceptional in its toxicity, that is. A growing number of truth telling historians are eager to help us discover these deeper roots if we are willing to listen. Here I’m thinking mainly of scholars like Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Gerald Horne who focus on the connections between settler colonialism, white supremacy, and an unparalleled level of gun violence. To me the question that grows more acute daily is how to amplify…
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…tion, then, like the story of Sodom, warns against the transgression of social codes that ensure an ordered society. Being penetrated by another man, or raping two male houseguests, is a metaphor for disorder and the neglect of social constraint. Such a scenario may seem extreme for the lesson it imparts, but that is how allegories teach us moral lessons. Historically, the most frequently cited scriptural passages in all three Abrahamic traditions…
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…ften complicit in abuses against LGBT individuals. The Guardian reports: Shia militias acting under Iraqi government cover are leading the persecution of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Iraqis, sharply increasing their risk of death or exile, a report has found. LGBT Iraqis lack family or community support and the government refuses to offer any meaningful protection, according to the report When Coming Out Is A Death Sentence publis…
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…ecca Barrett-Fox has interviewed seven women scholars—sociologists, theologians, historians, and leaders. The reflections she gathered, presented below according to theme, are notable in their insight—as well as in their frankness. –The Eds. _________________ ORIGINS AND ODYSSEYS Ann Taves: I entered college as an atheist, having been raised in a non-religious, culturally Protestant family. I took a highly recommended theory of religion course my…
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…Fox TV have ushered hate content and white supremacist content into the media mainstream, featuring racialized rhetoric that ranges from disparagement of blacks to harsher forms of racist venom—as in the case of frequent guest, Ted Nugent, who said of undocumented immigrants “I’d like to shoot them dead” and who publicly proclaims “working hard, playing hard…white shit kickers” as the “real” Americans. Fox talk shows reach tens of millions of pers…
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…cation deteriorates and distrust grows. For those who grow up in authoritarian or fundamentalist Christian families, the difficult questions can’t be answered by checking a box on a survey, which is likely why RD contributor Chrissy Stroop and journalist Lauren O’Neal decided to compile an anthology of essays by exvangelicals, former Catholics, and others who have moved out of institutional Christianity and into the liminal spaces where Nones are…
Read More…hare of the U.S. adult population has remained fairly steady in recent decades is “the disproportionately high number of Catholics among immigrants to the U.S.,” which has masked “the large number of people who have left the Catholic church.” According to Pew, approximately one-third of those raised Catholic have left the church and 10 percent of all Americans are former Catholics. If you were a business losing one-third of your customers, wouldn’…
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