Religion Dispatches
…never be discovered embezzling money, enjoying kinky sex, or (The Da Vinci Code notwithstanding) fathering surprise children. It’s not necessary to label something a “cult” to understand the potential peril involved in looking to a living guru. However honest and virtuous that guru might be, she—like the rest of us—is susceptible to tripping and falling right up until the day she dies. What makes some folks willing and able to trust in a charismat…
Read More…agons and strenuously defending the “homosexual practice” forbidden in its code of ethics, the school is reaching out. 51 of the school’s 92 faculty members responded, seeking “forgiveness for ways we might have added to your pain.” “We’re hoping to do a better job of talking to and loving each other and holding true to our scriptural principles,” said Jane Higa, the school’s vice president for student life. That doesn’t mean the school’s policy w…
Read More…there is broad agreement on what is called “delayed ensoulment.” That was code for saying that the fetus does not attain to personal status until it is well formed. Early miscarriages could not be named or given religious funerals. Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas held that the early fetus had the moral status of a plant, and that not even God could infuse a spiritual, person-making soul until the fetus was developed; some put this today at si…
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…tities and prophets” under articles 98, 160, and 161 of the Egyptian Penal Code. According to Egypt News Daily, the prosecution first sought to charge him in connection with disseminating Innocence of Muslims but when this accusation was proven false, they revised their strategy to target the content of Saber’s video blog. Though sentenced to three years and released on bail he was subsequently locked up due to a clerical error before being releas…
Read More…known for attacks on Scientology, decided to send a message to the Catholic Church by shutting down the official Vatican website (still not responding as of this posting). What are the Church’s misdeeds, according to these code crusaders? They go back to the selling of indulgences in the 16th century. And more recently, of course, there’s the Church’s interference in Italy’s domestic politics. (Not just Italy, we’d have to say.) – The Eds. …
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…Mark C. Taylor: Religion can be understood as a system of symbols (creed, code, cultus) by means of which people (a community) orient themselves in the world with reference to both ordinary and extraordinary powers, meanings, and values. (Albanese) Religion, I would argue, is a complex adaptive network of myths, symbols, rituals, and concepts that simultaneously figure patterns of feeling, thinking, and acting and disrupt stable structures of mea…
Read More…a to Pharaoh, appeared via videotape at the inaugural Freedom Federation conference last year at Liberty University, saying, “we know you love us and want to commend you for unconditional support for state of Israel,” adding that “Christians and Jews share the same future.” That’s code not only for no state for the Palestinians, but a perpetuation of illegal settlements and purging of Palestinians from occupied land. For Danon, Hagee, and friends,…
Read More…roomful of people, one of whom was Governor Haley Barbour: Few politicians today use outright race baiting, but we see the symbols some use and the phrases they utter and everyone knows what the code is—what really is being said. Oh, and he’s also called attention to how voter ID laws endanger the voting rights of poor and elderly people, and was named a Champion of Justice by the Mississippi Center for Justice. Yep. Classic Dick Molpus. May his t…
Read More…y. (I wonder if he’s familiar, precisely, exactly, or otherwise, with that today.) When Romney spoke to Hannity last February, it was on the heels of the presidential debate for which he had hired former Liberty University debate coach Brett O’Donnell, and in which he perfected parroting the religious right’s Christian nation ideology in an answer. Faced with a question from Hannity about Obama’s fealty to this Republican ideology, Romney seized t…
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…ublic, “what is the society we are trying to create?” Rules of Engagement: Promoting “Public Safety” When I speak to my fellow Christians, urging public engagement, I stress that the goal is not to invade the public square with Christian imperialism disguised as evangelism. Diverse people with different perspectives who seek, and compete for, seemingly dwindling resources can be a formula for discord. Our media provide striking examples of public…
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