Religion Dispatches
…ribe ideological motives to their loved one’s act of simultaneous self-destruction and homicide. Friends and family do it, perhaps due to the stigma against suicide. Terrorist leaders make the same claims for propaganda purposes. Even the bombers themselves, in their final videos (another cliché) speak of their delight in martyrdom—which Lankford sees as an attempt to mask the “shame and disgrace” of suicide. Western experts, looking for a compreh…
Read More…dential campaign in which a Mormon candidate and his conservative Catholic running mate echoed the same sort of alliance of anti-equality bedfellows, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has launched a campaign aimed at softening its rhetoric toward the LBGT community and LBGT Mormons in particular. A new website, “Love One Another: A Discussion of Same-Sex Attraction” offers videos from Mormon leaders, gay Mormons, and their families b…
Read More…thinks God wants her to turn her back on her gay child. The message of the stories and statements on the website pretty clearly identifies this behavior as destructive and un-Christian.” “It’s time to stop simply talking about what our Savior would do, and roll up our sleeves and actually do it,” said Mitch Mayne, an openly gay LDS man who serves in the leadership of his San Francisco congregation. “I’d like to see congregations emulate what we’re…
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…g cry. Nationalism doesn’t have the same appeal as other parts of the Arab world, because nationalist slogans are a mainstay of the ruling Baath party, and religious rhetoric also gives the revolution a higher purpose. Likewise, secularism is associated with the Assad regime, and is thus tainted by the regime’s authoritarianism. Second, Friday congregational prayers were the only place Syrians could gather en masse at the revolution’s start. The r…
Read More…even federal grants to local police forces. Her lack of experience, the abruptness of her leap from small-town mayor to Congressional candidate, and a lack of depth on crucial issues became apparent during campaign debates. Additionally, some Saratoga Springs locals say that Love’s national campaign distracted her from serving her own constituents when wildfires hit in June and flooding in September. And then there was Love’s chaotic campaign. Ac…
Read More…f clergy and people of faith. But of course Evans knows that—in one of the videos included in his recent email blast, he criticizes pro-equality clergy by name. NOM is also using marriage as an attack on Obama in other states. NOM’s Brian Brown and anti-gay strategist Frank Schubert (the misleading mastermind behind NOM’s anti-equality victories nationwide) also hope that Obama’s support for marriage equality will cost him reelection, even though…
Read More…on movement. Fiorina’s claim that the secretly recorded Planned Parenthood videos contain an image of a “fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain” is not quite accurate, according to the Washington Post, although in one video, a technician “described witnessing a scene similar to Fiorina’s description.” But no matter—Fiorina’s full-throated condemnation of…
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…been the miracle of Herbalife.” At times, his vision grew to encompass the world: Let me tell you something, gang. If we want to make a better world, it starts with us. It isn’t gonna happen at the election, it isn’t gonna happen through our government. It’s gonna happen with people like ourselves taking charge with our own lives, taking charges for not only our health, our financial situation—all of us together…we can all make this a better world…
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…GOD BLESS YOU ALL!!!” The mix of religious violence, the idea of a unified worldwide struggle, and the QAnon slogan are, of course, the bedrock of QAnon eschatological identity. At least one Canadian donor from British Columbia uses “the Storm” in what is clearly the QAnon context: “The Storm is upon us, it’s going to be biblical. Keep the faith, take courage. Love never fails.” Another 25 of the comments mention “The Great Awakening,” almost assu…
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…ent of praise music, while Madonna is endlessly trying to scandalize with crucifixes and nuns’ habits as she produces videos and tours all with the ornate regimentation of a mass. For each of them, religion matters, but their different backgrounds have led them to parcel out their music and their celebrity presence in strikingly different ways; while Madonna can’t escape St. Peter’s, Perry still bears the signs and scars of the megachurch. Since t…
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