Religion Dispatches
…ight Americans is poor. One child in six is poor. … From 2000 to 2007, the number of children living in poverty increased by 15 percent… In 2007, the richest 20 percent of Americans had over 50 percent of the nation’s income, while the poorest 20 percent had only 3.4 percent.” In a piece titled “Fighting Poverty With Faith,” Steeland and Nordengren recently reported that “the ‘Fighting Poverty with Faith’ action campaign [in September] brought tog…
Read More…ada. In subsequent years, the numbers fell: there were 209 church arsons in 1997 and 166 the following year, according to their annual reports. The last report was issued in 2001. Altogether there were almost 900 reported cases of church arson in the late 1990s—a huge number compared to what we’ve seen in the last two weeks. A second difference is that of public response. In 1995-96, there was a unique alliance of actors creating “perfect storm” c…
Read More…in popular culture. In the last Presidential election cycle, approximately 12% of the country thought that President Obama was Muslim. According to a recent survey, that number has now increased to 32%. I have argued elsewhere that using the term “Muslim” is the new way to call someone “nigger.” It’s a way to emphasize racial otherness and, because it draws on the same poisoned well as anti-Semitism, uses many of the same stock mechanisms for mar…
Read More…r PC society etc.” The number of supportive and sometimes racist posts outnumber those who advice caution. I can’t suspect such hideous posts are all from Saddleback membership. I’m sure quite a number are. It’s as disturbing as it is disgusting. Warren commented on Tsang’s article, “Thanks so much for teaching us! It was removed instantly.” However, Warren did not get around to posting a formal, public apology until the next day, once again,…
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…ay says it more starkly: “Not to oppose hate is to endorse it.” When he was 13, in the early 1960s, Irigonegaray’s parents took him to the State Capitol in Topeka to show him where laws were made, impressing upon him the importance of preserving freedom and liberty for all. This was no ordinary sightseeing trip or civics lesson, his family had just fled Castro’s regime in Cuba. “Any time anyone is made less equal, we all are,” Irigonegaray says, n…
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…his congregation, and to the region. CMRI expanded around the world in the 1970s and 1980s, opening churches, seminaries and convents in Canada, Europe and Australia. But Schuckardt was ousted from the leadership of his own congregation in 1984 amid allegations of sexual impropriety and administrative incompetence. The CMRI moved its headquarters to Omaha, Nebraska, under a new bishop. In many ways CMRI exhibits a pattern found in the more extrem…
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…Muslim Americans that dates back to at least World War I, and based on the number of slaves who were Muslim, it would not be surprising to find Muslims fighting to preserve the Union. According to Capt. Eric Rahman, recipient of the Bronze Star for his service in Iraq, too many people forget the example of Petty Officer Michael A. Mansoor, a SEAL who won the Medal of Honor after rescuing members of his unit from a firefight in Iraq in 2006. By rec…
Read More…learning from our colleagues and exploring these complex histories over a number of years, we have found that religious liberty is not a single, stable principle existing outside of history, as it is often depicted (particularly in policy circles in North America and Europe and by many academics invested in promoting religious freedom). It is, rather, an inescapably context-bound, polyvalent concept unfolding within divergent histories in differi…
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…hite evangelicals; the Utah College Exit Poll, however, with a much higher number of Mormon participants, put the number closer to 45 percent. Both figures are well below previous Mormon voting percentages for the Republican candidates, but they indicate that at least half of Latter-day Saints were willing to stomach Trump’s apparent moral deficiencies. This turn of events has historical precedent. Though the LDS Church’s political affiliation was…
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…actice, material culture and daily life as well as the law. I then spent a number of years tracking down, unearthing and interpreting the many iterations of the ancient biblical passages that turned out, much to my surprise and delight, to be just about everywhere in the United States of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. What’s the most important take-home message for readers? What a country! The stalwart, enduring presence of the Ten Comman…
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