Religion Dispatches
…ling of the I Ching (seen in the Dharma Initiatives’ octagonal symbol); an Egyptian-style temple on the beach replete with hieroglyphs; Dogen’s temple somewhere inland (Dogen was a key 13th-century Japanese philosopher who founded the Soto school of Zen), and the eternal presence of Richard (Ricardo) Alpert, whose namesake was dropping acid with Timothy Leary in the 1960s and eventually reemerged from the counterculture with the name Ram Dass. At…
Read More…at may have wide-reaching influence, the Supreme Court of British Columbia today opened deliberations in a constitutional reference case to determine whether a small group of fundamentalist Mormons living in a remote B.C. community called Bountiful may practice religiously-motivated plural marriage without fear of prosecution or conviction. Before a courtroom packed with legal experts, scholars, civil libertarians, and child rights advocates, just…
Read More…ed into the “founding principles,” “Judeo-Christian” foundation, and other code, but they did more. They wept; they told stories about soldiers and family members; they evoked imagery of mountains climbed and enemies vanquished. Mitt Romney, though? Not so much. Speaking directly after Pence, who since the inaugural Values Voters Summit in 2006, has always invoked the language of the religious right base, Romney was at a disadvantage. He was borin…
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…Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion over all others,” was rejected by religious conservatives. 3. The Enlightenment Ends Here: Board members voted to remove Thomas Jefferson from a world history standard about the influence of Enlightenment thinkers on political revolutions from the 1700s to today. Instead, they replaced him with theologians Thomas Aquinas and…
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…not the government, or at least from the government via God.) In Michigan today, Santorum is rehashing this speech claiming that “climate science” is actually “political science.” Translation: there is no science, there is only God. Any attempt at science is necessarily political, and therefore illegitimate if in conflict with a “Christian worldview.” Don’t be fooled by Santorum’s defense that he believes Obama when the president says he’s a Chri…
Read More…Christians is not reason enough for a divorce and, more often than not, is code for “serious sin.” Pentecostals have a history of being strict about reasons to divorce, adultery being scripturally the only reason to do so. For those who divorce and who have a denominational affiliation through ministerial license, a divorce can mean, at best, additional scrutiny and at worst, stripping of ministerial credentials. Of course, that never has stopped…
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…aren’t so much sober accusations of individuals’ crimes than an insiders’ code for ‘elite liberals.’ The Satanic abuse panic of the 1980s and 90s led to the persecution and false convictions of many innocent people and caused traumatic rifts in communities. The panic involved gothic stories of bloody ceremonies conducted by community-members in black robes, including graphic claims of child and adult sexual abuse and rumors of specific “cult” loc…
Read More…reotypes. Finally, Obama is grievously out of line for violating the tacit code of silence that plagues our country on issues of race, racism, and slavery. Many believe that it is politically incorrect to talk publicly about America’s perennial sins (both past and present) or to speak of America as anything but “the promised land,” or the fabled “City upon a Hill.” This includes bringing up any of America’s contradictions, such as the construction…
Read More…ion and, intriguingly, that he “adds to that diversity,” which is probably code for a less-than-orthodox approach to the faith. Huntsman is helped also by the fact that whereas Mormonism may be the most intriguing thing about candidate Romney, candidate Huntsman plays rock-and-roll and rides motorcycles. 3. He needs to show well in New Hampshire, but it’s South Carolina he is banking on. His campaign team is already heavy with recycled McCain pers…
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…ot to pay for your bags of fudge rounds It’s hard not to read “welfare” as code. Welfare has long been used in conservative circles as a dog whistle for Black people, immigrants, and others who are supposedly too lazy to work and thus draining the life from our society. The idea of the “welfare queen,” a single Black urban mother, was introduced by Ronald Reagan in 1976: “At a campaign rally in 1976, Ronald Reagan introduced the welfare queen into…
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