Religion Dispatches
…Sadly, only eight people survived the flood in Noah’s time,” he said. “The number of people that are going to be saved is going to be very small.” All this rapture talk reminds me of a morning I spent in the chair at my hair salon. My hairdresser had been reading Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series. She may be among the few convinced by Evans of the Rapture’s date. She was terrified after reading these books. “Sherrie,” I said, “all that Rapture theol…
Read More…sque is gigantic, full of beautiful and elaborate designs, with an immense number of repetitions to them. The stairs and the escalators are deceiving, taking two for each floor in one tower and only one escalator per floor in another tower. I never did figure out which was which. I knew the fastest way up to the third floor from my hotel, but this was always early and therefore less chaotic. It also involved a wide ramp straight from the outer fro…
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…ise on its axis. The center must shift if the human sciences are going to hold. In sum, I aim to move beyond deconstruction by radicalizing it or turning it inside out. So, the new book will articulate new methods for the social sciences by simultaneously radicalizing and moving past the postmodern turn….
Read More…te hearts and minds, and moving people out of the pews across America. The number of nones (people with no religious preference) is on the rise, with over 20% of all Americans claiming this status, and many point to the increased politicization of religion as the cause. This trend of legal victories will, in the long run, very likely create a more secular America. Recent data indicate that this process is already clearly under way. A poll just rel…
Read More…lifornia Republican. In the mid-1990s, he said, he approached then-Speaker Newt Gingrich about obtaining a room for the small number of Muslim staffers to hold Friday prayers. Gingrinch granted that request, and the tradition continued through the tenures of Speakers Dennis Hastert, also a Republican, and Nancy Pelosi. Over the years, the number of people attending grew, eventually leading to the creation of the CMSA around 2007, when Khan has alr…
Read More…She feels examined by their eyes Is she right or is she wrong? She’s got a number in her pocket And one change of clothes Her innocence is fading Like last years winter snow’s Light a candle in the window So she can see it from the road With all the loving in your heart Welcome her back home. The Docs’ keening for a fallen innocent seems all too prescient, given the recent negotiations over revelations of priestly sexual abuse of both girls and bo…
Read More…ssioned “preacher voice” was not enough to draw black voters out in record numbers as they did in 2008, even though a poll in the New York Times showed his favorables to be extremely high in the African-American community, while he is losing traction with other groups who voted for him in 2008. Issues in the community surrounding foreclosures and unemployment are likely to continue. If the black church writ large is to have any stake in the 2012 e…
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…who will herald the Second Coming of Jesus.) The Stracks and Dan Lafferty knew each other, but apparently, according to reporters Lafferty did not talk much about the impending end of the world with the Stracks and their contact ended in 2008. Nothing in the Strack’s house (and nothing they said to their neighbors or friends or family, at least as far as has been revealed to the press thus far) indicates why the Stracks thought the apocalypse loom…
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…ngelical Protestants than among Catholics.” But, as he notes, this isn’t a new trend; it’s the result of a two-decade long effort to cultivate “a new evangelical flock to compensate for the loss of lay Catholic support on cultural issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.” The real Catholic-Evangelical convergence is between the Republican leadership, the Catholic bishops, right-wing Catholics, and rank-and-file Evangelicals, a coalition that wa…
Read More…ation but to make a “Passover offering.” Seven is a biblically significant number, the number of completion and perfection, and in this spring of 2007 the Praise-a-thon began on Easter Sunday, the seventh day of Passover. If you make the Passover offering, Munsey claims, God will give you seven blessings: God will dispatch an angel to lead miracles; rid you of your enemies; bless you with prosperity; heal you; give you longevity; give you an inher…
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