Religion Dispatches
2014 was the year of the Satanist. In December 2013, The Satanic Temple announced plans to erect a statue of Baphomet on the grounds of the capital in Oklahoma City. This Baphomet statue was intended to challenge the constitutionality of a Ten Commandments monument erected on the capital grounds in 2012. That story has continued to develop all year. Meanwhile, members of The Satanic Temple, led by spokesperson Lucien Greaves, have been working li…
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…lly and freely practice your religion, as individuals, business owners and academic institutions. I will make absolutely certain religious orders like The Little Sisters of Poor are not bullied by the federal government because of their religious beliefs. And while the Catholic bishops were officially supportive of the Affordable Care Act (once they forced through the abortion restrictions they wanted), it’s not difficult to imagine them supportin…
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…ical Empire? I was fascinated by how fast PTL grew and how quickly it fell apart. What I really wanted to know was how PTL’s rise and fall were connected. How does deep religious devotion become so entwined with money, sex, and celebrity on a Hollywood scale? A short synopsis might help: Jim and Tammy started the PTL network with half a dozen employees in a former furniture store in 1974. By 1986 PTL had annual revenues of $129 million, 2500 emplo…
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…as entertainer and “educator” has been his intense attacks on President Obama’s theology of salvation, which he has called “evil” and “satanic.” The nature of salvation is not typically the topic of choice for political pundits. But Beck has latched onto it with a fury because he insists that President Obama’s liberation theology-influenced view of salvation is not only unchristian but un-American. Beck has become utterly enamored of religious ri…
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…o ring hollow. “Call no man father,” warned Jesus in a passionate diatribe against “those who love the place of honor” and like to be called rabbi or teacher (Matthew 23). “Woe to you!” he repeated, describing the leaders of his day as whitewashed on the outside but inside full of “all kinds of filth.” In fact, deference to “Father” is at the heart of this mess. Nuns now report not challenging priests when they spent unusual time alone with childr…
Read More…s part on the television series Growing Pains and more recently nicknamed Banana-man (along with Ray Comfort) for the anti-evolution DVDs that became the source of tremendous internet humor, said he hadn’t actually been invited to be part of Divine Destiny. But he declined anyway: I had heard that there were plans to put me on the list of speakers. I bought tickets… then there was a mix up… and I was cut from the list, if I had indeed been on a li…
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…d most influential Orthodox organizations, the Rabbinical Council of America and the Orthodox Union, co-sponsored America’s first National Jewish Child Abuse Prevention Week. There’s nothing to suggest that sexual abuse is any more or less prevalent in the Orthodox community than anywhere else; but there are a number of peculiarities to Orthodox Jewish life that have made the reporting of abuse less common than in society at large. “I think the su…
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“How do I know who the true God is?” Alber Saber Ayad’s question was answered by the Egyptian government last week when the 27-year-old computer science student was convicted for “contempt of religion” in Cairo. Saber was taken into custody on September 13 by the police after an enraged mob stormed his house, beating him and threatening his mother, a Coptic Christian. Saber was rumored to be circulating the Innocence of Muslims film trailer on hi…
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…y 16 full-time and two part-time employees, the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” does not require it to provide health insurance to its workers at all. (Only businesses with 50 or more employees are required by the new law to provide insurance.) However, if Annex chooses to offer its employees insurance, its plan—like those of larger companies—must comply with the minimum requirements for preventive health care services, including contraceptiv…
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…a quota of how many black students it would accept) proved to be the most damaging to my psyche. For the subsequent three years, in a million PTSD-inducing ways, I would be regularly reminded that my Black life was either worth very little or that it was, in no uncertain terms, altogether “sinful.” Obviously it wasn’t always the overt-racism that communicated such idiocy, like being called a nigger to my face by white men who claimed to have a clo…
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