Religion Dispatches
…between the Vatican and the nuns, as Mary Hunt reported in these pages in August, manifested by the Vatican dispatching investigators to nuns’ orders for supposed misconduct, even while ignoring the pedophilia scandals that rage across the globe. That’s the broader context in which this little health care battle is being waged. The nuns’ break with the bishops on health care is, Hunt, the co-director of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics a…
Read More…astors are expected to turn out their members for Governor Huckabee at the August straw polls. Lane, who is emerging as a major political force within the evangelical community, last year put together a Pastors Policy Briefing which brought together another 250 Evangelical pastors in Iowa. David Lane also works with the Iowa Christian Alliance which plans on setting up this fall 17 Iowa Caucus Training schools across the state in preparation for t…
Read More…Family, and will promote the acceptance and integration of LGBT people in parishes and local communities. New Ways Ministry will be active in both Rome and Portugal. In contrast, dozens of conservative Christian activists are urging Pope Francis and the bishops to “protect marriage” and “reiterate a traditional understanding of sexuality and gender roles” at the synod, notes Jack Jenkins at ThinkProgress. The signers of the letter are a veritable…
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…us on loving God.” Say what? I mean, is this the same Pat Robertson who in August 2005 issued a Christian fatwa against a democratically elected world leader? I would challenge anyone to tell me what is “loving” about declaring to a worldwide televised audience that “if [Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez] thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it.” Robertson later apologized, but halfheartedly. He tried t…
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…ming American Public Life. The book is available for pre-order from Amazon.com and will be in bookstores nationwide in August 2008….
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…with that. The Good Book doesn’t call for a new religion in the manner of August Comte, who tried to found a “religion of humanity” in the mid-1800s, complete with its own priests and holidays. It’s more self-help than manifesto. The book, as the inside cover reveals, was “conceived, selected, redacted, arranged, and in part written” by Grayling. The content, arranged in numbered verses, comes from over a hundred mostly-classical authors, includi…
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…een interest in Engle was evident at The Call held on the National Mall in August. The day before the event, the public relations firm Shirley Bannister introduced Engle—flanked by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins and former Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee—at a press conference just a few blocks from the White House. Perkins, one of the most visible political leaders on the religious right, noted Engle’s influence on yo…
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…an: Racism, Republicans and the Road to Trump Daniel S. Lucks Beacon Press August 4, 2020 Scholars have long pointed to Ronald Reagan’s 1980 appearance at the Neshoba County Fair, an annual event where Mississippi politicians regularly gathered to spout off racist diatribes that took place in Philadelphia, the town where Klansmen had murdered three civil rights workers in the bloody summer of 1964, as evidence of the racist undertones of Reagan’s…
Read More…In a meeting with Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Tom Perez on August 30, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, te Interfaith Alliance, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and Muslim Advocates asked the administration to publicly condemn hate crimes, harassment, and other forms of discrimination against Muslims. In addition, they urged a “coordinated federal response” to the backlash against Muslims, prosecutions…
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…eports that the spokesperson for The Response, Texas Governor Rick Perry’s August prayerfest, admits that the event is intended to convert people to Christianity. Eric Bearse, the event’s spokesperson, took to American Family Radio to counter critics’ charges that it was an exclusively Christian event, but said that “anyone who comes to this solemn assembly regardless of their faith tradition or background, will feel the love, grace, and warmth of…
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