Religion Dispatches
Writing under a pseudonym in the Forward, a Christian lawyer dismissed the apocalyptic component of Christian Zionism urging readers to take evangelicals’ love for Jews at face value. But Chrissy Stroop, who was raised in fundamentalism, calls this gaslighting.
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Scathing new reports demonstrate that Jerry Falwell Jr. is unfit to be Liberty University’s president, but while Falwell’s departure is long overdue, it would only represent the removal of one rotten apple, while leaving the tree in place.
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Homophobia, misogyny, and contempt for the poor are so very much taken for granted and accepted as “Christian” within The Family that its principals are able to say, with a perfectly straight face, that they have no political agenda when they support and subsidize authoritarian leaders around the world who exemplify and implement these hatreds.
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When we hear religious conservatives using the language of “prayers” and “favor” as a disaster strikes, it’s important to recognize that this pious rhetoric conceals neoliberal politics that impede the work of government institutions of disaster management.
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This story should sound familiar, especially given the blame thrown at godlessness in the wake of mass shootings and the “thoughts and prayers” offered as a “solution.”
Read MoreThe sages, or rabbis, whose teachings were collected in the Mishnah, had a concept they called ‘tumah,’ or ritual impurity. This term, which to some readers might conjure visions of judgmental tub-thumpers, isn’t at all equivalent to today’s abstinence warriors.
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God tells you not just the way you should be, but the way you actually are, and if you accept that, you will be blessed. If you step outside of it, you’re just asking for trouble. So arguing against this structure asks conservative white evangelicals to rewire their entire sense of reality.
Read MoreThough conflicts between religious groups and the civil authorities often result in a violent outcome, activists and scientists in Hawaii have thus far managed to avoid the violence with some surprisingly simple techniques.
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Thinking of these killers as “lone wolf” actors makes it easier to dismiss them as demented individuals, hapless victims of bad parenting, self-destructive misfits, or erratic evil doers. But we need to see these “lone wolf” white supremacists for what they are—members of “wolf packs.”
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In order for the GOP leadership to continue to do nothing on guns they need loyal foot soldiers to deliver messaging that appeals to their base. What this messaging, familiar to those of us who grew up in the Christian Right, tells us about the “soul” of the Republican Party is not pretty.
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