Religion Dispatches
…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…morial Day weekend Trump appeared at the annual “Rolling Thunder” rally in Washington, D.C., an event organized initially in the late 1980s, and since the mid-1990s an incorporated organization which stages the annual motorcycle rally (at one point attracting 350,000 bikers). The organization advocates for the cause of veterans, although its initial (and still active) impetus, as The Economist magazine put it, was to advance a specific crackpot be…
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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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…e book was launched at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC, on the very day (May 16, 2009) that LCWR opened its impressive exhibit of the history of US women’s religious communities at a museum in Cincinnati. “Women and Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America” is a carefully researched, well funded, expertly mounted exhibit of the proud and stunning history of American nuns. The Vatican could save itself a lot of trouble…
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…Wade anniversary is also when opponents of reproductive justice descend on Washington DC for their annual so-called March for Life. That event is likely to be smaller than usual due to pandemic conditions. Some would-be marchers have said they will not be attending because proof of at least one coronavirus vaccination is needed in DC to access indoor spaces such as restaurants. This is not surprising given that white evangelical Christians—who are…
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…-Senator Obama campaigned on the theme of changing the partisan culture of Washington. Such a pledge is either a cynical ploy or naïve arrogance. After all, a culture of civility is not a goal that even a president can achieve without help. Two years into his presidency, it’s time to drop the talk of changing the culture of Washington and to put forward and defend a coherent vision of governance. This doesn’t mean that Democrats should abandon civ…
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…a well-armed people, and when the call came to come out and to fight the redcoats, people were armed—pastors, and their parishioners. They came out and defended their liberties.” The view that gun ownership is a Christian duty, rooted in the overlap between Reconstructionism and the survivalist/militia movement, has become common in both. In his “Bring Your Pieces to Church” Sunday essay, Reconstructionist Joel McDurmon makes this point, suggestin…
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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…at nations do have a right to regulate their borders. Former Archbishop of Washington DC, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, has admitted as much: “The Catholic Church acknowledges and supports the right of a sovereign nation to secure its borders, most particularly at a time in which national security is in question.” Pope John Paul II who publicly talked about a “human right to immigrate,” sometimes spoke of national identity in the same terms used by…
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