Religion Dispatches
…ther projects for the Fox News Channel. Here’s the release as reprinted on Business Insider: FOX NEWS AND MERCURY RADIO ARTS ANNOUNCE NEW AGREEMENT (New York, NY) Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Glenn Beck’s production company, are proud to announce that they will work together to develop and produce a variety of television projects for air on the Fox News Channel as well as content for other platforms including Fox News’ digital properties. Gle…
Read More…of “redemption,” even though Smid claims to be out of the “ex-gay” making business. The new ministry also comes with an apology from Smid for his past actions: I really wanted to help the young men in our program but in some cases the design of our program caused more harm for some of these kids that it did good. I am very sorry for the ways that Refuge further wounded teens that were already in a very delicate place in life. I am grateful for th…
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…pose Roosevelt’s New Deal policies in the 1930s. That alliance between big business and conservative Christian leaders culminated in the 1950s Cold War, as exemplified in the anti-Communist development of slogans such as “One Nation Under God” and “In God We Trust.” At first bipartisan, Christian patriotism crystalized as a particularly Republican virtue during the Nixon, Carter, and Reagan administrations. Part of the recasting of the US as a uni…
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…f society, which by their reckoning included government, media, education, business, entertainment, religion, and family. According to the late C. Peter Wagner, a key proponent of the ideology, the responsibility of Christians to take over “whatever molder of culture or subdivision God has placed them in” is really a matter of “taking dominion back from Satan.” That last bit about Satan gets to the throbbing heart of this political ideology. In Ki…
Read More…an sacraments. And marriage can mean many different things in contemporary American life. Marriage is a very big and very expensive business. It is a foundational personal aspiration for many, from adolescence on. It is a rite of passage. It is the stuff of popular music, film, and more. The same may be said of sex, intriguingly enough. Sex, too, is a very big business. It too has become an adolescent aspiration, a rite of passage, the source of m…
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…instill confidence. Young people see other, surer paths to upward mobility—business, finance, law—avenues more financially promising and that appear to be comparatively less clogged with contentious personalities. But for those who discern the call to preach the gospel, even for those of us who pursue ordination later in our careers, such concerns fade to insignificance. We approach our calling with energy, enthusiasm and idealism—and then run int…
Read More…ve 10 years to reach the 25 percent threshold. Rob Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, says there are concerns over the project, but it’s too early to tell whether the proposed business incentives would be unconstitutional in that it would involve excessive entanglement with religion. “The larger question is should the state be promoting a religious enterprise like this—especially one that only serves to du…
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…sproportionately on issues such as abortion and homosexuality.” Now—as his business partner Tim Phillips heads up tea party astroturf group Americans for Prosperity—he’s burrowing for an opening to convince activists that social and economic issues are linked. He recently described an overlap between tea party activists and his organization on the Christian Broadcasting Network. Religious right activists see that overlap too, but not yet a marriag…
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…then used the third party principle to try to allow conservative Christian business owners to deny service to married same-sex couples, or those intending to be married. The argument (which is disturbingly similar to arguments against recognition of interracial marriage and relationships in the last century) is that a business discriminating against same-sex couples is exercising a reasonable extension of their religious opposition to marriage equ…
Read More…bow’s handlers might have urged him to cancel because Jeffress was bad for business. Those who have followed Jeffress’ media habits will not be surprised to find he’s making the most of the moment, dishing up interviews and grabbing airtime with just about anyone who will listen. But can the example of Tim Tebow, who is a member of the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, speak louder than the voice of Robert Jeffress? Could Tebow convince the…
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