Religion Dispatches
…ggest misconceptions about your topic? The political types, both right and left, have managed to create the idea that the sixties were a time of leftist, collectivist politics. But Camille Paglia is right to scorn such thinking. This was an era of mad individualism, not collectivism, of romantic essentialism, not social construction. The old lefties failed in their every effort to organize. Abby Hoffman was booed off the stage at Woodstock when he…
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…essential definition of “woman” to reproduction is as problematic from the Left as it is from the Right, where many openly argue that motherhood is every woman’s divinely ordained role—a role to be pursued at the expense of all others. (It’s worth noting here in passing that neither the Catholic Church nor the Southern Baptist Convention, the world’s largest Protestant denomination, permits the ordination of women.) Both the transantagonistic Righ…
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…ed churches and a multiplication of disciples.” In other words, they’re an evangelically-oriented bunch. How does that make them different from any other evangelical denomination? What are they going to do differently in the face of increasing secularism? No idea, it’s not discussed. “We believe if the church is going to be successful in the 21st century, it needs to be powered by a more agile structure and it needs to be more theologically aligne…
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…s belly chain shining. His hands were clasped behind his head and over his left shoulder hung a crucifix. Boy howdy. I stared at that picture intently more than I would like to admit—at least until my mom tore the poster off the wall in disgust. The only other man allowed in our house dressed in similar fashion was Jesus on the cross, and he wasn’t sexy at all. Prince was sexy. His hair flowed like silk, and he sang songs that made your skin heat…
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…ong and racist history of slavery-affirming theology, and especially white evangelical racism (see Anthea Butler’s work), also makes it clear that this isn’t something that “outsiders” brought to the movement. It was a feature, not a bug of white Christian nationalism. The consequences for the future of American democracy are potentially devastating. Zimmer warns: “Every ‘Western’ society harbors far-right extremists like Rogers who dream of commi…
Read More…, while internally consistent, sooner or later infuriate those on both the left and the right. Focusing on how he infuriates the right: Paul’s views on foreign policy are consistently non-interventionist. He holds that the Constitution prohibits US involvement anywhere in the world unless America is directly threatened. That goes for Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Rwanda, Darfur, even Israel. He wants to bring home American troops from Europe and drast…
Read More…deep sadness.” He wrote that he felt as if fundamentalist and “mainstream” evangelicals had teamed up to push progressive/emergent evangelicals out of the tribe: “Yesterday shows that the former main stream evangelicals are now going to double down on this issue or anything that even hints of it. Be clear: this actually wasn’t a debate on same sex marriage. This was a debate on whether or not a Christian organization can hire gay Christians from d…
Read More…opper with this op-ed, in particular: [W]hen it comes to the agenda of the left-wing of the Democratic Party—those who brought us abortion on demand and who fight against the teaching of abstinence education in our children’s schools—their devotion to religious freedom goes out the window. They would force Catholics and others who have beliefs rooted in their faith to sacrifice the teachings of their faith to the mandate of federal bureaucrats. Th…
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…hen opposing same-sex marriages she has cited German law, her values as an evangelical Christian and those of her party, which describes its foundations as the “Christian understanding between people and their accountability before God”. Johannes Singhammer, the vice president of the Bundestag, said his party, the CDU, should challenge the law in the Constitutional Court. The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party also said it is studyi…
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…about this, or people write me about the book, they always say, “Well, I’m left with one question. What it is it that we do that…?” That’s the wrong question. It’s such a tempting question to ask, though. It makes you feel like you have some control over the situation. Well, if only we did something differently, they would stop hating us! That’s right. It’s strangely disempowering to realize that this hatred has nothing to do with you at all. It’s…
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