Religion Dispatches
…media (both mainstream and alternative), Moon continues to move ahead on a number of fronts. His Washington Times continues to be the daily house-organ/must-read for conservatives; he has spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting right-wing organizations and causes; he controls the US sushi industry; he does business with North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il: and as Moon watchdog John Gorenfeld has reported, Moon officially considers himself Emperor o…
Read More…nd distaste wherever they appear. Now, the WBC folks are on the warpath in Washington State against the big guy himself – Santa Claus. Westboro Baptist Church has jumped into the fray over the atheist sign at Washington’s Capitol building by requesting its own sign announcing that “Santa Claus will take you to hell.” In a letter faxed today to Gov. Chris Gregoire and state legislative officials, the church asked that its sign be placed next to the…
Read More…its first annual Vine and Fig Tree Award. Named for a reference in George Washington’s letter to the Jews of Newport, the award will be given on September 19, 2013 to a journalist who, in their estimation, demonstrates “excellence in reporting on religious liberty issues.” Other figures honored by the Becket Fund include Gov. and Mrs. Mitt Romney, evangelical author Eric Metaxas, and National Organization of Marriage co-founder Robert P. George. …
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…mong that trinity, which includes the celebrations of the births of George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr., it remains peculiar. Unlike the first president of the nation and the twentieth-century century civil rights leader, Christopher Columbus has only a tenuous connection to what became the United States. Although many of us were erroneously taught that “Columbus discovered America,” he never set foot on soil within our national borders a…
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…ublic conversation about poverty. “She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.” Reagan’s caricature of the “welfare queen” cemented it in the American imaginary: By the time the “welfare queen” finally emerged on the national stage, the American pu…
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…mory—we have never seen the full extent of the devastation wrought by the “Washington consensus” on the lives of others and on the life of the planet itself. We’ve never seen the effects of the global sweatshop up close; we’ve never seen what privatized water markets look like in places like Bolivia; we’ve never asked whether there might be a connection between NAFTA’s effects within Mexico and the urgent need of Mexicans to reach El Norte, even r…
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…civil disobedience and goes to jail to help stop war or nuclear weapons. A number of the questions are clearly designed to elicit answers the Vatican knows full well it won’t like. The data will provide the pretext for concluding that the decline in numbers in progressive groups is a result of their lack of obedience and conformity to the men’s rules. Solution: tighten up the ranks. Enter the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, the alte…
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…testors to hold up a Bible for a photo-op in front of St. John’s church in Washington, DC on June 1st. Rev. Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham and head of the Samaritan’s Purse organization, tweeted that “the word of God…is sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). Dallas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress declared that Trump held up the Bible because it teaches that God “hates lawlessness,” echoing verses like 1 John 3:4 (“Everyone w…
Read More…the other speakers will be, Beck has “discovered” a medal of merit George Washington awarded and, characteristically lacking in humility, has decided to reestablish the practice of the founding father. When he announced Palin’s participation, he had this to say: In 1780 George Washington developed a badge of merit. It is what our Purple Heart is modeled after…At the time the world only gave medals and badges and everything else to officers, but h…
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…e a mistake to think that the striking similarities between January 6th in Washington and January 8th in Brazil were produced by chance. There are networks of authoritarian political movements across the globe, populated by like-minded individuals, who will eagerly smash democracy in pursuit of seizing or retaining power. They work together.” Indeed, while we don’t know enough about those who planned the Brazilian insurrection yet, the close ties…
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