Religion Dispatches
…le for the exemption. This will, Catholics for Choice argues, increase the number of employees of Catholic organizations who would be deprived of contraception coverage, even if they aren’t Catholic themselves (or are Catholics who dissent from the church’s opposition to birth control). HHS notes in its rule that “the exemption should not exclude group health plans of religious entities that would qualify for the exemption but for the fact that,…
Read More…pseudoscience), her misinterpretation of key texts, and an unusually high number of factual inaccuracies (by some independent estimates, up to 500 errors). Doniger had every right to publish her book, and like every academic work, it will have its supporters and detractors. However, by dismissing her intellectual critics outright and not fully explaining the inaccuracies of her book, Doniger did a fundamental disservice to the nature of academic…
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…020, there have been 146 Covid deaths in Sri Lanka with a disproportionate number coming from the Muslim community; despite making up less than 10% of the population, Muslims account for nearly half of the reported deaths. A Muslim leader in Sri Lanka informed the authors that the number is actually higher, and that 82 Muslims have died, with over 70 cremations. The cremation of the victims was carried out by the state without the approval of the…
Read More…urdered more than 300 million individuals,” going so far as to divide that number up: “3/4 Hindu/Buddhist, Animist/Pagan 1/4 Christian/Jewish/Zoroastrian.” So, while it’s true that he borrows a lot of imagery and language from the Christian crusades, such a list of world religions indicates that Breivik also thought in terms of modern religious diversity. It wasn’t merely Christendom versus Islam, it was a world of peaceful religions defending the…
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…ption, and more openly racist and exclusionary public policies. And a huge number of these voters identify as Christian. And we’re supposed to find a way to reconcile with them? I can’t, and I won’t. The only path forward I can see is the path of confrontation and struggle and relentless organizing for power—nonviolently, of course, but without the genteel gestures toward bipartisanship and compromise centrist Democrats are so fond of. Commentator…
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…cacy is “probably the only grassroots movement that includes roughly equal numbers of pro-life and pro-choice individuals. We often hear shock from legislatures, saying they have never before seen these two groups come together on the same piece of legislation.” Shaye Miller, previously the member chairwoman at Nebraska Friends of Midwives, says that the issue usually gets quickly “dropped” when abortion is brought up amongst midwifery advocates….
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…(down eight percent in seven years, to 70.6 percent), and the rise in the number of Americans identifying as atheist, agnostic, and otherwise religiously unaffiliated (up six points in seven years, to 22.8 percent). Greg Smith, Associate Director of Research at the Pew Research Center, called the pace of the continued growth of the religiously unaffiliated “really remarkable.” The number of Americans identifying with no religion grew by 19 millio…
Read More…Catholicism, is in many ways the most traditional Catholic of the sizeable number of Catholics jostling for the GOP nod. Bobby Jindal has labeled himself a “Catholic Evangelical” and even hosted “The Response,” a prayer extravaganza that amounts to a full-out paean to Christian nationalism. Rick Santorum has long courted the Christian right with his anti-abortion rhetoric and was once named by Time magazine as one of the nation’s “25 Most Influent…
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…. The study of early African-American print is having something of a renaissance right now, with a number of books, conferences, and journal special issues devoted to the topic emerging in the past few years. So it could seem (and some have claimed) that this is a newly invented field. But this is not at all the case. My book depends upon the work of pioneering scholars who have sometimes been ignored in the rush to stake “new” academic territory….
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…xploring their spirituality in different ways.’ I think eventually a large number of those people will re-affiliate in some way, shape, or form—but when they do, the actual institutions of religion will be very different because of the demands those people make on new kinds of churches. I look at that whole arc of people who are leaving church because of the failure of the institution, and I don’t see that as threatening. I see that as a really ex…
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