Religion Dispatches
…faith through a prism of American nationalism? Not to mention the growing number of Americans without any religious commitment? Beck tells us, “you must fall to your knees and you must reconnect with God. He is not asking you. He is commanding us as a people to get behind Him. He will right the wrongs. We will have to pay a price because we lived outside of His laws. We will have to pay a price, but every day we don’t get behind Him, the price ge…
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…victim, who did not wish to be named, told me: “They can’t keep it quiet any more. There are too many people screaming about it.” Going to Secular Authorities can have Terrible Consequences In fact, there are many similarities between the way in which the Catholic Church and the Orthodox community have dealt with abuse. Both are closed, conservative communities. Both have a hierarchy and an infrastructure built around the idea that they are resp…
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…elatively few countries around the world criminalize irreligion as such, many impose arbitrary burdens on secular manifestations of conscience that are not experienced by others. These include laws and policies regulating: • apostasy and religious conversion; • blasphemy and religious criticism; • compulsory religious registration, usually with a government proscribed list of permitted religions; • religious requirements or restrictions on governm…
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…ampaigns” from advocates including Fox commentator Mike Huckabee. The company emphasizes that it faces potentially bankrupting fines of up to $1.3 million per day if it refuses to comply with the coverage mandate. The courts in this case have so far avoided ruling on whether the company should be seen as the alter ego of its owners in asserting religious objections to offering contraception coverage. In its petition to the Supreme Court seeking a…
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…e to be here, but we’ve conferred with Jesus and have decided to allow it anyway. It’s because of this that watching those same teachers, pastors, former students and the like develop a sudden interest in posting black squares or release statements to the effect that they “stand with their black brothers and sisters in Christ” is at best, laughable. At worst it stirs up old trauma that I and others who share my experience have spent small fortunes…
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…er ultimate love for her mother, whom she asks for forgiveness instead of any divine redeemer. “But all the good in me is because of you/It’s true,” she sings with the loud silence of omission of any mention of the God alleged to be the source of goodness. She defies God by leaving him out of her conclusion at all. But this is the silent treatment toward God rather than a denial of his existence. It calls God to task by not appealing to God at all…
Read More…one to measure the pontiff’s influence” than, say, actual metrics like the number of people going to mass or returning to the church. According to Burke, you just have to “ask around” Boston to find folks who know someone who’s thinking about returning to the church or who feels less horrible about the church than in the darkest days of the U.S. clerical sex abuse scandal, which had Boston at its epicenter. That’s a pretty low bar, but of course n…
Read More…n insular, secretive, manipulative people. During the campaign season, many of us who were Mormon and supported marriage equality found ourselves in the otherworldly situation of trying to communicate to outsiders the magnitude of what we saw happening inside our Church, only to be met—for the most part—with disinterest or disbelief, or a consistent underestimation of Mormon organizational capacity and discipline. Well-meaning, politically sav…
Read More…big tent approach to coverage of American ir/a/religion. But do the Gallup numbers point to new ways we might be thinking about business as usual? Two findings are striking. First: Gallup reported that although Americans felt religion’s influence was declining, many—75 percent—agreed that more religion would be positive for the country. Not surprisingly, churchgoers were most gung-ho about religion’s beneficial impact. But “over half of those who…
Read More…r. Martin Luther King Jr. about bending the arc of history toward justice? Can you even say “bend the arc” in Hebrew? Or Yiddish? I am a fan of this organization, whatever its name. They do great work, and they have the potential to do even more. I have no doubt that many consultants and stakeholders wrestled with all the issues I’ve spotted here, and many more, and that this reflects their sincere best efforts to balance multiple constituencies…
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