Religion Dispatches
…d me they are enraged when they pass these crosses planted on campus which use Jesus to accuse women of murdering their babies. And they are frustrated when college administrators tell them this activity is covered by academic freedom. Academic freedom leads to scholarly enquiry. So let’s examine the religious validity of fetal cemeteries. The notion that one can create a cemetery for fetuses actually highlights the fact that, the religious ritual…
Read More…ng process that sorts out good options and bad even before decision makers use appropriate caution in choosing the path forward. The institutionalization of checks and balances, Rosenberg argues, is the essence of liberalism. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether Rosenberg is being fair to AZDem. What I want to say here is that neither of them are being particularly accurate in how they pick up on Niebuhr’s concept of humility. “Niebuhrian hum…
Read More…thin religious circles. The controversy here is that religion is trying to use pseudo-psychological methods to convince gay and lesbian people that science supports their efforts to “pray away the gay.” They use studies from psychologists like Paul Cameron whose research has been discredited (he has been kicked out of the American Psychological Association). In fact, as Wayne Besen has pointed out in an op-ed in the Advocate, the entire foundation…
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…ink it’s good to be a distraction to your team. I don’t think it’s good to use the team as a platform. I totally disagree with that. Not his protest. But I just think there’s a right way to do things. I don’t think two wrongs make a right. Never have, never will. I think it just creates more divisiveness, more division. For Swinney, the right way to do things is in a manner that doesn’t feel divisive, such as a team press conference with the team’…
Read More…d gay couple, James Fairbanks and Alain Beret, contend that the diocese refused to sell them a historic mansion in Northbridge, which had been used for years by a church-affiliated nonprofit retreat center, because the couple might host same-sex weddings there. Fairbanks and Beret, who wanted to operate the property as an inn that would hold weddings and other big events, contend the diocese accepted their initial offer in spring 2012, but eventua…
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…gelical hypocrisy is doomed to failure, but we keep doing it. We do it because it feels good. Letting off steam against a faceless digital avatar is really the lifeblood of social media after all. It also feels good to get the adulation that comes with a social media pile on. We feel good knowing that other people saw us challenging an enemy in public. But despite the momentary good feels, not much changes. What this social media trope should teac…
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…ds a man of his first lover and evokes a longing that cuts to the heart. I used to think I’d someday sort out the difference between what I believe “for myself” and how I was conditioned to think. These days I don’t believe that clarity is possible. For one thing belief is a snapshot of just that day since beliefs change and we also change our minds. So instead I use the fundamentalist chains binding my brain as a point of creative departure, as t…
Read More…of things the other way around: we believe that the maldistribution (or misuse) of power causes problems in the social fabric. But it’s possible that just the opposite is true. Perhaps because we are so disconnected from one another, and because we have heard ad nauseum that our “safety and success” have nothing to do with those of others, we share power so poorly these days. Block’s approach to setting things right involves getting citizens to si…
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…ed in our political discourse? The answer, according to Jones, is that because some social conservatives are willing to make a tentative step toward reconciliation in the interest of advancing other worthy causes, progressives ought to reciprocate. As the strong in the congregation at Corinth deferred to the weak, apparently progressives ought to defer to conservatives in order to bring them into the fold gently. This tantalizing idea fails on any…
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…itration boards, and ineffective external (non-police) review boards being used to release accused police persons from justice. ○ An end to the standard of reasonableness that allows police officers to shoot to kill Black and other racial minorities on the officer’s assertion that they feared for their life. ○ Pressure on insurance companies to demand changes in police procedures and policies used by police departments that consistently lead to hi…
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