Religion Dispatches
…violent and divisive political past. Even gridlock between extreme elements that nonetheless agree to participate in a democratic electoral system is an advance over the savage civil war between a secular dictator and religious terrorists. In this sense even a tumultuous Tahrir Square is much better than the heartbreak of Ground Zero….
Read More…d others in protest of “the annual Iran-backed al-Quds Day rally.” From CIJNews, which calls itself a news source for the Canadian-Israeli community: Doc, a spokesman for Queers Against Islamic Apartheid, told CIJnews that he wants to see a boycott, divestment and sanction campaign against 52 Islamic countries, including OPEC nations, that engage in imprisonment, torture and murder of gay people. “We are a group of people made up of Kurds, Yezidis…
Read More…oes not presuppose or require agreement on gay marriage, but it does ask a new question. The current question is, Should gays marry? The new question is, Who among us, gay or straight, wants to strengthen marriage? Gays and lesbians have argued all along that their goal isn’t to destroy marriage, but to strengthen it—to rehab it from the ghetto Blankenhorn points out that it has become. Not everyone is convinced, of course, and while opponents usu…
Read More…eneral Conference Talk, these are incremental but significant changes. The new CHI: 1. Removes the implication that same-sex relationships “distort” love. 2. Removes the imperative that members should repent for having “homosexual thoughts or feelings.” 3. Removes the instruction that Church leaders should refer members to professional counseling. This is especially significant because in times past leaders were encouraged to refer members to prac…
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…el Hill. A good Northeastern liberal, I’d read the warning articles in The New Republic before I went, and I knew the Tea Party had taken over the state, but I could not have imagined something like the “bathroom bill,” or HB2. When I sat in Bell’s audience in Durham in March, the fallout from the state’s recent anti-LGBT legislation was just beginning. Still, I kept waiting for someone in the audience to ask: what do we do if it’s not our church…
Read More…into the fact that the loudest critics of Park51, notably Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, are not New Yorkers and represent a political movement not generally associated with the rights of minorities. The most ringing defense of the proposed Islamic center came from Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York and a Jew. “We would betray our values—and play into our enemies’ hands—if we were to treat Muslims differently than [sic] anyone else,” the ma…
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As I was driving to see Four Blood Moons, a new docu-drama about Biblical prophecy, an enormous storm blew in. During the film, long rumbles of thunder interrupted interviews about prophets, lunar cycles, and civilizational war. Lightning flickered in the west as we left. It’s awfully tempting to read omens into natural phenomena, isn’t it? Picture it: you’re sitting in a suburban Raleigh cinema, watching a wall-sized projection of a Texas mega-p…
Read More…in the rejection of all that came before that fall might be used to seed a new time in our history. I hoped that my nation might be headed in a new direction. I hoped that my people might be more generous and open. I hoped that the wars might finally come to an end. I hoped that the government might rule fairly, for all. What have we received instead? A week after the election, we find that those who laugh at the idea of justice are returned to po…
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…. Open alliances between Hindu supremacy and White supremacy have not been new. During their tenures in office, President Trump and Indian PM Narendra Modi based their close personal relationship around the deep overlaps between their respective political projects—and, one could add, their cults of personality. These were epitomized by two massive showpiece events within the space of a year: the Howdy Modi rally in September 2019, and the Namaste…
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…G). Meanwhile, the NAR is a racially and culturally diverse coalition that promotes Christian Zionism as fervently as it promotes Christian nationalism in the US. And while the NAR’s philosemitism can itself be deeply problematic, it certainly isn’t as threatening as White supremacy’s conspiracy-laden antisemitism. However, as recently as the mid-twentieth century, the movements actually were the same. William Branham (1909-1965) was a revivalist…
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