Religion Dispatches
…ted. Only 149 groups existed before Obama was elected in 2008. In 2012 the number had expanded to 1,360. Not all are plotting terrorist attacks, of course. But some are. In September 2012, Daryl Johnson, a terrorist analyst for the US Department of Homeland Security testified before a Senate committee that there was an “upsurge” of potentially violent non-Islamic extremist activity in the United States. So fingers point toward right-wing Christian…
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…who seldom or never attend church (17% in 2023 to 24% in 2023), but these numbers are far below the proportion of the general population who have opted out of religious services (54%). And while there has been some fluctuation among the “super attenders,” those who attend church once a week or more, a majority of White evangelical Protestants still report attending church this frequently—a rate more than double the general population (54% vs. 24%…
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…, by 1810 the term was also being applied to Native Americans. And while a number of enlightened whites believed that the natives of this continent had nobler natures than white people, the problem (again) was that they had been rendered dependent and degraded via their corrupting interactions with lower-class Europeans. Absent an aggressive program of “civilizing” these people, they could not be permitted to remain living cheek-by-jowl with white…
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…hile significant from the perspective of recent trends, however, even that number must be put into perspective. When discussing “Catholics” for the purposes of politics it’s important to remember E.J. Dionne’s famous maxim that “there is no Catholic vote, but the Catholic vote matters.” That’s because the white Catholic vote tends to mirror the demographics of voters in key Northeastern swing states like Pennsylvania. And this explains some of the…
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…ive the wrath that is to come in November. We’ll see. Ted Cruz opened door number three on Tuesday: “This man is a pathological liar,” Mr. Cruz said, ticking off Mr. Trump’s distortions, his infidelities, his penchant for conspiracy theories. “The man is utterly amoral.” As I mentioned the other day, the rejectionist route seems to be the one Baptist leaders are taking as well. Any of these options involves some risk, but door number three is a pa…
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…ched at the end of this summer, Kreeft’s larger point has resonated with a number of religious leaders. Echoing Pope John Paul II’s prediction that third millennium could be marked by a unified Christianity, Kreeft predicted: “The age of religious wars is ending; the age of religious war is beginning: A war of all religions against none.” Ultimately, the WCF doesn’t draw the numbers of other global alliances like the World Social Forum. In 2007, f…
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…le for the exemption. This will, Catholics for Choice argues, increase the number of employees of Catholic organizations who would be deprived of contraception coverage, even if they aren’t Catholic themselves (or are Catholics who dissent from the church’s opposition to birth control). HHS notes in its rule that “the exemption should not exclude group health plans of religious entities that would qualify for the exemption but for the fact that,…
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…tholic Christianity as a factor in his conversion, but he also points to a number of other courses that he took at King’s that led him to the point of conversion. He says of the college’s curriculum that it is “not a ‘great books curriculum’ but it draws heavily on the liberal arts tradition.” He adds, “You can’t study the liberal arts without confronting the rich history of Catholicism.” Indeed The King’s College is a microcosm of the larger comm…
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…this time—after all of the atrocious and dangerous behavior—a significant number would turn away and vote for a return to conventional presidential leadership. Where are these defectors? As I write this, election boards around the country have already counted the votes of over 67 million people who want more death, more deception, and more openly racist and exclusionary public policies. And a huge number of these voters identify as Christian. And…
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…ssiles Hamas has fired (2,270)—some reaching as far north as Jerusalem—the number of Hamas’ smuggling tunnels uncovered (31), the number of Israeli soldiers killed in action (29). These numbers will likely change every hour. In the weeks leading up to the Israeli invasion of Gaza and now as increasingly grisly accounts and bloody images emerge of Palestinian homes and hospitals blown apart, American Jews are conflicted—alternately protesting again…
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