Religion Dispatches
Today is my last official day for completing local business before departure. I’ve balanced my checkbook and paid all of my bills except the ones that are automatically paid (which is about the same as being paid, when the checking account from which they are drawn has been balanced). I’ve taken out cash for travel with the knowledge that using ATMs abroad is always a great way to get the best rates. Yep that’s right. The U.S. always considers it…
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…e Second Vatican Council in 1965 was spurred in large part by criticism of official Vatican neutrality during World War II. At the time, it was hailed as a forward-thinking document which attested to deep introspection on the part of the Church. Nostra Aetate forms the additional reason why Pope Francis’s comments were surprising to so many, from scholars to Catholic theologians to Jewish leaders. Were such views not thoroughly repudiated by the l…
Read More…action from small pesky items like getting the effing economy back on track. In short, the dialogue should proceed as follows: Q.: Is the President really a Christian? I mean, does his really really for reals love him some Jesus? A.: Listen, pinhead: the official unemployment rate is almost 10%. The real rate is more like 17%. I don’t care if the President worships a goat. This seems utterly simple. It can also be deployed against the pretensions…
Read More…around Elder Packer’s hurtful speech than have carefully read the prepared official PR statement affirming LGBT humanity and dignity. Few have absorbed the nuances Church leaders have been hammering out in successive statements about LGBT issues. Many are still thinking like we were taught to in the 1970s, that homosexuality is simply a base perversion, an abomination, and can be changed through repentance and prayer. Not so, say a legion of LDS L…
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…entions and pictures of her were also recently deleted from the group’s website, Goodstein reported.. Obviously Barrett’s participation in such a group doesn’t disqualify her from a federal judgeship. But questions about how the practices and beliefs of such a group with somewhat authoritarian, patriarchal overtones that is clearly central to her life might influence her thinking as a judge are legitimate and should have been aired at the hearing….
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…gate, and you have to do exactly as they say.” Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Christian Alliance, was chosen to head Iowa’s forty-member delegation to the Republican National Convention. Grassley, the state’s senior Republican official, was denied a seat in the delegation. Apparently, the leaders of the Religious Right in Iowa are not only determined and militant. They can be churlish and petulant as well, even to an erstwhile ally. The se…
Read More…ent to allow trans woman to change legal gender A court ordered government officials to allow a transgender woman to change the gender in official registration and on her national Identity Card. Italy: European Court of Human Rights slams failure to recognize same-sex couples’ marriages On December 14 the European Court of Human Rights condemned Italy for refusing to recognize the unions of same-sex couples married in other countries: The ECHR acc…
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…denominations as an issue: It’s easier to close an entire Catholic or Episcopal diocese (or all the Mormon meetings, which was really striking), than to get nondenominational evangelical pastors on the same page, or a denomination like Southern Baptists who pride themselves on local church-level decision-making. Pressed to comment on deeper motivations, Zauzmer added, “Politics definitely plays a role,” noting that some of President Trump’s false…
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…cover-up allegations, according to reporting in Washingtonian, its current official policy still fails to demand that pastors inform secular authorities (unless required by state law), and still casts reconciliation between abuser and abused as the key goal for church leadership in addressing abuse. https://twitter.com/watchkeep/status/1400234070878134273?s=20 Mahaney himself has remained a part of the conservative Christian boys’ club, facing few…
Read More…jority is imperiled by LGBTQ communities. Although Modi refused to take an official stance on Section 377, he let his associates speak for him. These have included Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who said the B.J.P. would not support such “unnatural” acts, and member of parliament Subramanian Swamy, who, in 2015 said “our party position has been that homosexuality is a genetic disorder.” Most significantly, since his 2014 election, Modi and other par…
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