Religion Dispatches
…rning against worshipping this false god, a point of great emphasis in the New Testament and tied to concerns about wealth, debt, and greed. For many good Christian Americans, the boundaries between religious life and work life are clear, separate, distinct. For some, it’s the Jews who demonstrate an unhealthy mix of religious orientation and love of money. Am I stepping out of bounds by raising the possibility that perhaps a good many Christians…
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Indie comic publisher BOOM! Studios has announced a new comic series conceived by actor-turned-evangelist Stephen Baldwin, Comic List reports. BOOM!’s press release describes The Remnant as “A supernatural thriller in the vein of 24,” but the title suggests it’ll be more of a Left Behind knock-off—indeed, it shares its Revelation-inspired title with the tenth book in the Left Behind series. Baldwin states of the series: “I wanted to do a comic th…
Read More…n the broader sample. But an in-depth study of 49 tea party leaders by the free-market oriented Sam Adams Alliance suggested that the leadership consciously avoids social issues and plans to continue doing so. That hardly supports the statement Sapp makes: “Polling has also showed that the majority of Tea Party activists do not think government should support any set of moral values or define marriage.” Yet he concludes, “Think about that. Most Te…
Read More…ome were not Muslim and I am not LGBT. I am not really fond of the iftar-in-a-restaurant experience; but the company was great, the discussions were interesting, and it was helpful again, for me to not be always alone. Last night I think was my best fasting day ever. I had to ride with a friend a couple of hours from home, for a program amongst some Sufis. The program involves (meditative) sitting, prayer, doing dhikr and having a discussion led b…
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…ship created by months of on the ground work initiated and directed by rank-and-file LDS Church members. It’s a rare glimpse of how Church members in a conservative and profoundly hierarchical faith tradition are changing the quality of the discourse about homosexuality at the local level, making it practically impossible for their communities to ever again return to the tense, difficult, invective-filled days of the Fall 2008 Yes on 8 campaign se…
Read More…gning against the civil rights of same-sex couples and fostering in many a new commitment to supporting full equality under the law for LGBT people. Just this summer, since the Mormons Building Bridges contingent in the Salt Lake City LGBT Pride parade, we’ve seen a wave of Mormons come out to friends and family, including Mormons in mixed-orientation marriages and parents of gay LDS children. Their telling of personal stories has an impact on c…
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…number of key credibility markers.” Or any, really. Of course, one evidence-free bit of “news” is not in itself notable in this media landscape. But this isn’t the first time this rumor has been reported as fact and acceptable uncritically. Earlier this year there were a rush of such reports by conservative commentators such as the American Conservative‘s Rod Dreher, National Review‘s Ramesh Ponnuru and Fox New’s Brit Hume. Each referenced, as evi…
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…ights. Mexico: Activists debate outing Catholic priests as response to anti-equality organizing New Ways Ministry’s Bob Shine highlights a report from the Telegraph on the controversial decision of the National Pride Front to respond to church support for recent anti-gay rallies by publicly naming nearly 40 Catholic priests and religious as gay.” The Front said they were not condemning the relationships, but the double standards of church leaders…
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…he was actually quite pleased: all the writing was his own. Before this 40-year-long road began, he’d seen and been part of that seminal, mid-century opening of America to poetry, spearheaded by Richard Brautigan, Diane diPrima, Allen Ginsberg, LeRoi Jones (now Amiri Baraka), Kenneth Rexroth, and others. He hosted a venue in New York City for poetry readings, and published three books of his own poetry. Then something else called to him. As he re…
Read More…ts, many more are indigenous, and have been Muslim for longer than many Protestants have been Protestant. If one belongs, why doesn’t the other belong? Why does it matter how long you’ve been in a place for what rights you have as a person? When we give in to fear-mongering, we forget a simple fact: The most recent genocide in Europe was against European Muslims. The one prior was against Jews. Terrorism is a real threat, and requires a sophistica…
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