Religion Dispatches
…ween conflicting religious attitudes, and the freedom at stake is not only freedom of expression but freedom of religion. For while Luther was surely engaging in offensive speech, he was also exercising a right of freedom of conscience, which included the right to dissent from Catholic orthodoxy. Debased though Luther’s rhetoric may have been, there was no way to be a reformer without offending the hegemon. It’s a story as old as religion. Orthodo…
Read More…administration is pressing forward with a rule that tramples on religious freedom, taking particular aim at Roman Catholics. The Obama administration is forcing religious institutions to choose between violating their conscience or dropping health care coverage for their employees, effectively destroying their ability to carry on their work. But note how Romney only builds the case that he’s a politically opportunistic flip-flopper with this op-e…
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…ished around the Man as it ignites and burns, once it collapses people are free to surge toward and dance around the pyre.) My nieces puzzled over this for a moment, and soon realized this anonymous individual was indeed shouting “theater” in the midst of a rather “crowded fire.” When they told me this story later that night, I immediately seized on it as the title of what was at the time my dissertation as I thought it spoke brilliantly and provo…
Read More…y and same-sex marriage — those are sins against God, and the president is promoting them. I’m not against homosexuals as people. But God commanded that marriage should be between a man and a woman.” “And I very much appreciate that President Putin is protecting Russian young people against homosexual propaganda,” Graham continued. “If only to give them the opportunity to grow up and make a decision for themselves. Again, homosexuals cannot have c…
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…es on the thorn in the very side of Christian theology: how to distinguish between body and soul, flesh and spirit. Death is a death in body; for many Gnostics, it was seen as a way to release the soul. (That, by the way, is just how Jesus views the matter in the popular Gospel of Judas, published two years ago: Judas did not betray Jesus, but rather did what Jesus asked him to do, in order to “sacrifice the man that clothes [his spirit].”) Accord…
Read More…as Obama did, but I apologize to both for an unintended slur.” But, as the Free Times reports, Knotts wasn’t quite as repentant in the moments after uttering his slur. With a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face outside a Columbia bar, Republican S.C. Sen. Jake Knotts called Lexington Rep. Nikki Haley, an Indian-American Republican woman running for governor, a “raghead” several times while explaining how he believed she was hiding her…
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…hrist.” She goes on, “We came to Jesus, because we were bound, we were not free. But Jesus paid the ultimate price to set us free for all of eternity.” No, there’s simply no tenable case to be made that Boebert is not a “real” Christian. She is very much a Christian. She is also a terrible person. And if we can’t get it through our heads that it is very possible to be both of those things at the same time, we will never effectively counter the cor…
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…n applies equally as well to the more negative aspects of human nature or, better, culture. To generalize a bit, our culture tends to give value to human life in terms of competition. Our economics, our politics, our educational system, even our entertainment found themselves upon—and, in turn, teach—the seemingly commonsense assumption that life is race or a game, the goal of which is to come out on top. We all, of course, hope to be among the w…
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…im to be baffled: “Why do Tibetans feel this way? Have we not modernized Tibet? Tibetans now have electricity, roads and medical care. Aren’t Tibetans more prosperous than they were fifty years ago?” Despite these material advances—which in fact are confined almost exclusively to urban areas—most Tibetans feel as though they are second-class citizens within the PRC, lacking the same rights, privileges, and economic opportunities that the Han Chine…
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…nd bloodshed of Donald John Trump’s time in office, just as there’s a line between between political correctness and cancel culture; between scoffing at the liberal media and QAnon; and between generalized white male rage at the loss of entitlement and white nationalism. If his victims want to take the opportunity of his death to vent, well, who can blame them? (The Gateway Pundit, for one.) More to the point, who can silence them? If anyone dared…
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