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   Sample Protest Email Regarding Hager Important Note: This is one of the old emails still circulating about Hager's appointment -- which happened two years ago. Read it, then: Return to article on what Dr. W. David Hager's been doing since then. "DEAR FREINDS AND... [ Continue reading: ] L'il Ol' Me Kathryn Joyce: The appointment of anti-abortion and anti-birth control advocate Dr. W. David Hager to the FDA’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee apparently seems like such an oxymoron that, two years later, people still can’t believe it happened. Emails urging protest of Bush’s appointment still circulate, and the Urban Legends Reference Pages website has had to dedicate a webpage to the issue, Status: True. But Hager, a member of Focus on the Family and author of the book, As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now, really was appointed, really was reappointed this June, and as Mother Jones's Chris Mooney reports, really does exert a powerful influence on women’s health policy. [ Continue reading: ] 31 August, 2004 "The funniest philosopher of all time"? Scott McLemee, at The Chronicle of Higher Education, reviews The Humor of Kierkegaard: An Anthology (Princeton University Press). Thomas C. Oden, a theologian who introduces the collection, argues that Kierkegaard's humor "emerges from the... [ Continue reading: ] This Mess We're In Ken Wiwa: "In Africa, like anywhere, the best time to imagine the world at peace with itself is just before dawn." [ Continue reading: ] 31 August, 2004 Two French journalists being held by the Islamic Army of Iraq were shown on Al Jazeera, pleading for the French government to retract its ban on head scarves, The New York Times reports. The French government argues that the law... [ Continue reading: ] 31 August, 2004 The gay Log Cabin Republicans have withheld their endoresement of George Bush in outrage at the Republican Party platform's plank hostility to any form of gay unions. "This party has a choice to make, about whether it will be the... [ Continue reading: ] 31 August, 2004 Different paths to the kingdom: "The rebel Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr is considering a future in politics rather than warfare..."... [ Continue reading: ] 31 August, 2004 "'One gay bronze statue'" of Greek God of Thieves, Hermes, was found this week after being stolen earlier this month.... [ Continue reading: ]  30 August, 2004 The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, expressed frustration with "the rawness of the anger" which characterized the divisions in the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican communion, which has split over the issue of ordaining homosexual priests. "'While we... [ Continue reading: ] 30 August, 2004 Former president Bill Clinton spoke yesterday at Manhattan's liberal Riverside Church, urging mainline Protestant voters to challenge the Christian conservative movement that dictates much of the Republican Party platform, writes Joel Connelly of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Riverside Church is leading... [ Continue reading: ] 30 August, 2004 The firing of a University of Georgia cheerleading coach, after she allegedly used religious criteria to keep a Jewish cheerleader off the premier cheer squad, has focused attention on the promotion of religion in team sports from high school to... [ Continue reading: ] 30 August, 2004 "'This is powerful stuff. If anyone ever accused me of playing God, this is as close as you can get. I am not God, I play no God, I just do God's work.'" An American scientist from Kentucky working in... [ Continue reading: ] 30 August, 2004 Republican delegates from Alabama to this week's New York convention were disappointed that the party's platform doesn't focus more on the public display of the Ten Commandments, reports the AP. Delegates such as state Sen. Bill Armistead wanted the platform... [ Continue reading: ]  28 August, 2004 "'I want people to judge me on my deeds, not how I try to define myself as a religious person of words.'" Go on, guess.... [ Continue reading: ] 28 August, 2004 A study of congressional voting patterns over the last 25 years shows that religious affiliation helps create an ideological divide between Republicans and Democrats that virtually ensures a partisan split on almost all votes -- not just the culture war... [ Continue reading: ] 28 August, 2004 "Between tricks on his board, Anderson uses terms like 'stoked' and 'awesome' in discussions of forgiving sins." Recently born-again actor Stephen Baldwin and skaters from his recent "Christian extreme sports" DVD, "Livin' It," join the Revolution Church.... [ Continue reading: ] 28 August, 2004 A child-care center run by the Assembly of God Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, was forced to close Friday after receiving threatening phone calls and finding hundreds of leaflets with anti-religious messages scattered across their parking lot. The leaflets were... [ Continue reading: ]  27 August, 2004 Last week an Islamist women's group launched a monthly online magazine, Al-Khansaa, aimed at recruiting Arab women jihadis to fight holy wars against non-Muslims. The AP reports that magazine will also provide fitness tips for female holy warriors, information on... [ Continue reading: ] 27 August, 2004 Some of the thousands of Iraqi Christians who fled the country in fear of radical Muslims are returning to the northern, Kurdish-controlled parts of the country, reports Uwe Siemon-Netto of United Press International. Iraq's Ambassador-designate to the Vatican, Albert Yelda,... [ Continue reading: ] 27 August, 2004 The carbon-dating of an ancient wooden carving found at the prehistoric timber circle known as Seahenge gives archeologists new information about the Bronze-Age monument as a site of religious, fenerary or magical significance. The wooden carving, identified as sex-changing Viking... [ Continue reading: ] 27 August, 2004 "'This is a great day for women's health, because it means the Constitution holds that doctors will treat women's health and not Congress.'" The New York Times reports on a judgment in a New York federal court, which yesterday ruled... [ Continue reading: ]  Polygamist group irks W. Texas town By Karen Brooks Reprinted with permission of The Dallas Morning News ELDORADO, Texas – The narrow dirt road cuts away from a padlocked metal gate with a "No Trespassing" sign and an infrared security camera. The road drapes like... [ Continue reading: ] August 26, 2004 The Pope says "No" to cosmic energy and tragic spiritual vacuums.... [ Continue reading: ] 26 August, 2004 South Africa's Inkatha Freedom Party -- a long-time adversary of the African National Congress party, which assumed power after the end of apartheid -- is emphasizing its "center-right" politics and hinting at an ANC defection to the IFP, reports The... [ Continue reading: ] Reporting Waco's Ghosts When Warren Jeffs, spiritual leader and "prophet" of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, caught the media's attention, again, for buying land in Eldorado, Texas, more than one paper responded with UFO analogies: aliens invade a sleepy, back-water town; locals stumped, spooked. That's what Joseph Reaves wrote in The Arizona Republic, adding on the fright of "a stay-at-home mother of two pre-teen girls," who speculated, "We're a small enough town that if they wanted to, they could just take us over." Part of the alarmism is typical treatment for outsider religions, part of it may be justified, and part of it is exacerbated by local memory... [ Continue reading: ] 26 August, 2004 The New York Times has spoken, and what they've said -- after some delicate disclaimers that early reports on Lt. General William Boykin's "Christian army" antics "sounded like an over-the-top satire" -- is that the General must resign. "He has... [ Continue reading: ] 26 August, 2004 The Republican draft party platform -- which The LA Times characterizes as further to the right than the 2000 platform -- is what Gary Bauer calls "'a pretty solid document.'" But then again, Bauer is dismissing party divides that run... [ Continue reading: ] 26 August, 2004 The Alpha Iota Omega fraternity has filed a federal lawsuit against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for revoking its official UNC recognition last year, after members refused to sign a nondiscrimination policy that its membership be open... [ Continue reading: ] 26 August, 2004 The World Bank has published a book emphasizing the need for collaboration between religions and develpoment organizations in fighting poverty, reports Zenit News Agency. Writing that "'the links between the two worlds have been fragile, intermittent and at times confrontational,'"... [ Continue reading: ]  25 August, 2004 John Safran versus God: Australian comedian/documentary filmaker John Safran (of streaking through Jerusalem fame) has made a new series in which he: has a fundamentalist Islamic cleric put a fatwa on a fellow comedian, is beaten by a Japanese Zen... [ Continue reading: ] 25 August, 2004 Lois K. Solomon, education writer for The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports on the controversy caused by Geoff McKee, principal of Boca Raton High School. McKee, a devout Baptist who does not believe in evolution, has angered some parents and teachers... [ Continue reading: ] 25 August, 2004 Relapsed Catholic points us to this AP story: The vandalism and burning of a Jewish community center in Paris has been blamed on neo-Nazis by the mainstream press but an unknown group of militants have claimed responsibility on a militant... [ Continue reading: ] 25 August, 2004 According to a new Pew poll, the fickle American public has changed its mind again about candidates discussing their faith and prayer. Jim Remsen of Knight Ridder Newspapers reports on the "'marked shift'" in public attitudes towards religious references: In... [ Continue reading: ] 25 August, 2004 Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric, has returned to the country and is calling for citizens to march on the "burning city" of Najaf, Reuters reports. While details about the march are not yet known, there is... [ Continue reading: ] 25 August, 2004 "'What he's saying is that he wants to create a bunch of Jerry Falwell clones with law degrees who will fill up the courts and courtrooms with people who think just like him. And that has serious implications for people... [ Continue reading: ] 25 August, 2004 In an emergency ruling, a federal appeals court decided last night that the open Bible monument outside a Houston court can remain while the appeals court consider's the county's request to delay removal (per order of a prior ruling) while... [ Continue reading: ]  Hulk Respond! Revealer editor Hulk: Christianity Today blogger extraordinaire Ted Olsen goads Revealer editor Hulk: "Aside from a Beliefnet article over the weekend, the National Catholic Reporter's article about Bush adviser and Crisis editor Deal Hudson has completely fallen off the radar. (Weblog thinks reporters are ignoring it just to see if The Revealer editor Jeff Sharlet merely starts walking the streets of New York in a sandwich board, or if he turns apoplectically into The Hulk, pummeling reporters who haven't followed up on the story.)" Hulk know what to say to that. [ Continue reading: ] 24 August, 2004 "'This shrine's a problem.'" NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Washington Post embed Karl Vick about the "politics" complicating things in Najaf. " target=_blank>Listen.... [ Continue reading: ] 24 August, 2004 Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced Sunday that licences are no longer needed for indoor talks and that the free speech venue Speakers' Corner can now host performances and exhibitions. The Straits Times reports on only caveat to the... [ Continue reading: ] 24 August, 2004 Michael Newdow announces plans to refile his pledge challenge in the federal 9th Circuit next month with another atheist parent whose custody can't be questioned as Newdow's was. Newdow is also helping other atheists file legal challenges to the pledge... [ Continue reading: ] 24 August, 2004 The Best Practice Team, a independent group formed to address sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church, released a report yesterday offering a model for responding to allegations of abuse in any institution, not just the Church. The model requires... [ Continue reading: ] 24 August, 2004 Christopher Bader, a sociology professor at the conservative Baptist Baylor University, talks with Jeffrey Weiss, of The Dallas Morning News, about his recent study on people who believe they are UFO abductees or victims of religion-linked ritual abuse. Bader's study,... [ Continue reading: ] 24 August, 2004 "In the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan, the killers pray toward Mecca. The million displaced people do as well. Marauding men on horseback, the women raped by them, the rebels who incited the fighting and the politicians, soldiers and police... [ Continue reading: ]  What the Swift Boats Tell Us With regard to the swift boat controversy, a quick lesson in kairos from the greatest American pagan writer, William Faulkner: "The past is never dead. It's not even past." -- Requiem for a Nun. [ Continue reading: ] 23 August, 2004 The Supreme Court rejects Michael Newdow's appeal to reopen his case challenging the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance. Read more.... [ Continue reading: ] 23 August, 2004 A devout Christian lab worker at MIT, machinist Mark A. Peterson, has filed a lawsuit contending that supervisors failed to stop a 15-year campaign of harassment and ridicule against his religious beliefs, but instead joined in "'openly telling jokes about... [ Continue reading: ] 23 August, 2004 "'When you grow up Catholic, I remember being encouraged to think of Jesus as your friend. Just a friend, like the friends you had on the playground, or in school. And I can remember that that was a part of... [ Continue reading: ] 23 August, 2004 Yesterday Pope John Paul condemned human cloning as an arrogant attempt to improve on God's creation, Reuters reports. Less than two weeks ago, British scientists were granted the first license in Europe to clone human embryos for medical research.... [ Continue reading: ] 23 August, 2004 A Jewish community center in Paris was vandalized and burned by neo-Nazis on Sunday, reports The New York Times. The attack falls between two anniversaries: the August 18 commemoration of the Red Cross entering a detention camp and freeing 1,500... [ Continue reading: ] Ordinary Life & Death By Jeff Sharlet  The war in Iraq proceeds now with ever-more deeply embedded religious symbolism... [ Continue reading: ]  The Prodigal Press Sins No More Kathryn Joyce: All of this seems par for the course by now, having witnessed the televangelist scandals of the '80s, Paula Jones’s accusations, Governor McGreevey’s affair, Monica. The press’s routine coverage of a breaking scandal is something the public can predict line-for-line, one character portrait after another, day upon extended day. It’s kind of the same this time -- but the press left the party early... [ Continue reading: ] Campaign '04 In search of religion on the campaign trail. With essays from Jay Rosen, Debra Mason, Jason DeRose, Amy Sullivan, Rod Dreher, Shahed Amanullah, Bob Smietana, Kim Pearson, The Raving Atheist and others, plus a rare find from Amish country. [ Continue reading: ] Here on Earth, Right Now Today at 3 pm eastern time (and thereafter online): Revealer editor Jeff Sharlet on Wisconsin's Public Radio's "Here on Earth, with Jean Feraca," to discuss religion in writing from around the world. Click on the program described as being about the roots of the Shi'ite/Sunni conflict. That subject will be covered by Richard McGill Murphy, a senior editor at Fortune Small Business, whose essay on the Shi'ite sermons in Pakistan -- along with a translated sermon -- can be found in the special world religion edition of one of The Revealer's favorite websites, Words Without Borders: "The preacher had a rubbery, expressive face that reminded me of Walter Matthau as the broken-down Little League baseball coach in The Bad News Bears. His name was Sayyid Nasim Abbas. Over ten sermons, Sayyid Nasim told the entire story of Karbala to an audience of weeping mourners. Each sermon was about an hour long, of which roughly the first forty minutes were taken up by a didactic lecture about the religious duties of Shi’ism. In the last third of the sermon, Sayyid Nasim switched registers entirely, delivering a highly emotive serial account of the tragedy to which his black-clad audience responded with tears and lamentation..." Read more. Hear more. [ Continue reading: ]  21 August, 2004 Show yourself: David Adam, science correspondent for The Guardian, reports on the announcement yesterday of a multi-national group of scientists who plan to create a new, gigantic atom smashing machine called the international linear collider, priced at 3 billion pounds.... [ Continue reading: ] 21 August, 2004 After officials at Maine Medical Center in Portland noticed that three out of ten Muslim women were skipping their appointments, they redesigned their standard "drafty gown" to offer Muslims a more modest alternative (available upon request).... [ Continue reading: ] 21 August, 2004 The problem with One Electorate Under God (edited by E. J. Dionne Jr., Jean Bethke Elshtain and Kayla M. Drogosz), writes Peter Steinfels in The New York Times, is its diversity -- the tome weighs in with contributions from over... [ Continue reading: ] 21 August, 2004 "'It's unsafe everywhere -- why not buy in Israel?'" The Washington Post's Molly Moore reports on the resurging real estate market in Jerusalem, and the Jews buying land from abroad -- encouraged by religion, wealth and a slowdown of violence... [ Continue reading: ] 21 August, 2004 "'A pigeon flew down and perched on him. Jesus took this as a sign that God’s Spirit was with him. A voice from overhead was heard saying, "That’s my boy!"'" Make room for another Bible rewrite...... [ Continue reading: ]  Pilate's Political Wisdom Tired of Deal Hudson? Much better Catholic writing is to be found in V.Y. Mudimbe's story at Words Without Borders, a terrific site that translates literature from around the world. Mudimbe's narrator is a nun in the former nation of Zaire, circa 1978, at the brink of civil war: "I reread the Passion of our Lord according to Saint Matthew. I came away from that with an odd wish: if only our politicians could have Pilate's hesitation! Did he tremble when, questioned about the truth of his kingship, Jesus answered him calmly: 'Thou sayest?' Pilate invites him to defend himself, is astonished at the victim's silence, and bargains with the persecutors: 'Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?' Did he have the power to change this Passion's course, and so the course of the history of salvation? Perhaps he perceived its inescapable character, poor man, and took refuge in neutrality. 'What evil has he done?' he asks. He knows the answer, too: none. He washed his hands and immediately thereafter, to save face, he had the Lord lashed with a whip. In short, the art of politics: don't take any risks..." Read the whole story. [ Continue reading: ] 20 August, 2004 James K. Glassman, at The American Enterprise, is dismayed by the poor reception given to the U.S. at last month's AIDS conference in Bangkok. The U.S., after all, "contributes twice as much money to fight AIDS globally as the rest... [ Continue reading: ] 20 August, 2004 A 2000 federal law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which prohibits local land-use regulations from imposing a "substantial burden" on the exercise of religion, will soon come before the Oregon State Supreme Court. City officials in West... [ Continue reading: ] 20 August, 2004 The Philippine government is forming a "Christian-Muslim Solidarity Center" to aid the country's fight against terrorism. Outgoing Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita explained that religious groups "have access to the field so they can cooperate with the government." Read more.... [ Continue reading: ] 20 August, 2004 On the 400th anniversary of the primary Sikh scripture, Guru Granth Sahib, the White House invited ten Sikhs "in the morning to be present while President Bush was to leave for Minnesota for election meeting." President Bush reportedly waved at... [ Continue reading: ] 20 August, 2004 Berlin conference on Religion and the Media: "Crossing Borders: Culture, Religions and the Media," scheduled for October 15 to 17, will open the 2004 Prix Europe – the European festival for TV, Radio and the Internet.... [ Continue reading: ] 20 August, 2004 Washington Post's Alan Cooperman gets in on the Deal (Hudson) deal with an A-6 snoozer. Why is the resignation of the Bush's chief Catholic advisor -- a position of much greater power than the governorship of New Jersey -- getting... [ Continue reading: ] 20 August, 2004 Nick Coleman turns in a snarky report on a campaign revival -- we mean, rally -- for Bush in Minneapolis. It's pretty funny, if perhaps unfair. But the best bit is a moment of complete earnestness, a couple of Romanians... [ Continue reading: ] 20 August, 2004 Salon correspondent Phillip Robertson, inside the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf, HQ of the Mahdi Army: "'Why does America hate poor people so much?' That was a common refrain..." After three days with the Mahdi Army under seige in the... [ Continue reading: ] 20 August, 2004 Boykin bonked: AP reports that Pentagon investigation finds Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin guilty of violating regulations when he gave speeches in uniform declaring his God bigger than Allah.... [ Continue reading: ]  19 August, 2004 Everyone likes a winner: Bush has been using images of the Iraqi soccer team in his advertising and inserting them into his speeches. But according to Sports Illustrated, Bush is one fan the team can do without: "How will [Bush]... [ Continue reading: ] Bush's Catholic Deal Jeff Sharlet: The New York Times is playing the resignation of Bush advisor -- and conservative Catholic big -- Deal Hudson as a second-tier story, but we think it should be huge on the front page. Not because Hudson turns out to be a hypocrite -- seems he was drummed off the faculty of Fordham in '95 for making a pass at a drunk student [CORRECTION: For kissing and fondling two underage students and engaging in public sex with a third, all in one night] -- but because of what even a perfunctory investigation reveals about the administration's approach to the Catholic vote. "'If you wanted to get something to the top inner circles of the White House from a Catholic perspective, you could contact Deal Hudson and it was delivered.'" And yet Hudson hardly represents mainstream American Catholicism... [ Continue reading: ] 19 August, 2004 Jim Yardley of The New York Times reports on the latest incident of religious persecution in the Chinese countryside. Last week, he writes, an American Buddhist group that spent $3 million renovating an 800-year-old temple said that soldiers and police... [ Continue reading: ] 19 August, 2004 "I think that the cigarette smoking focuses [the human capability for denial] in a wonderfully metaphorical way: how do we deal with the fact, existentially deal with the fact that our lives come to an end. Smoking, in a way,... [ Continue reading: ] 19 August, 2004 It's a cutesy story, but at least Elizabeth Biddlecombe manages to avoid phone-call-to-God jokes in her Wired report on religious text messaging. Cell phones, she reports, are now being employed to send prayers to the Hindu god Ganesh; to transmit... [ Continue reading: ] 19 August, 2004 Who will the Republicans appease? A new press narrative forming around the party -- that the Bush campaign is pushing its solid base of conservative evangelicals to the side to appeal to more moderate swing voters -- is strangely familiar.... [ Continue reading: ] 19 August, 2004 "'Invisible souls helped me to come to power.....Now, the Government is being run by the grace of God....Our contribution is nothing,'" India's Chief Minister Uma Bharti said yesterday, crediting divine intervention for her election with a three-fourths majority to the... [ Continue reading: ]  18 August 2004 Wash Post headline gets it wrong: Melanie Mattson of Just a Bump in the Beltway calls The Revealer's attention to a story in today's paper on a letter to Bush from 10 "teachers of Christian ethics." The story is solid,... [ Continue reading: ] 18 August 2004 The L.A. Times' report on the "emerging church movement" tells you everything you want to know about the evangelical breakaways said to be revolutionizing evangelical worship styles -- except what they believe. Is this conservative theology dressed up in "alternative"... [ Continue reading: ] 18 August, 2004 In 2000 Muslims favored Bush over Gore by as much as 90 percent in some polls. Not so today, writes Dante Chinni of Christianity Today: "It's amazing how much can change in four years - years that have included Sept.... [ Continue reading: ] 18 August, 2004 Don Lattin of The San Francisco Chronicle reports that researchers at the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y., have compiled one of the first comprehensive studies on the Bush administration's efforts to redirect government grants to churches and other... [ Continue reading: ] August 18, 2004 Rev. Jerry Falwell has announced plans to open a conservative law school this month to train attorneys who will fight for conservative causes. "'We want to infiltrate the culture with men and women of God who are skilled in the... [ Continue reading: ] 18 August, 2004 "If something goes wrong, the buck stops with the spirit world...And you can't call the spirit world to come and explain why this was done this way and not that way." The New York Times's Michael Wines reports on the... [ Continue reading: ] 18 August, 2004 U.S. District Judge Sim Lake rules that a Bible display located outside the civil courthouse in downtown Houston violates the separation of church and state. Read more.... [ Continue reading: ]  17 August, 2004 The Nashville Tennessean is still looking for the right candidate to fill its religion reporter's job, vacated when Brian Lewis accepted a position at another paper. The Tennessean seeks someone with 3-5 years religion reporting experience, who likes to break... [ Continue reading: ] On a Shaky Wall Beacon Press has just published a useful little volume for journalists on the God beat: The Separation of Church and State: Writings on a Fundamental Freedom by American Founders. It's sized to fit beside cash registers in bookstores, and as such it should easily find space on any reporter's bookshelf. The editor, Forrest Church, is senior minister at All Souls Unitarian in New York City, and liberally-inclined. And yet the collection of writings is fundamentally conservative. The separation of church and state is important, this collection suggests, because that's how the country was conceived. Church would like to keep it that way. [ Continue reading: ] 17 August, 2004 Florida's voucher law -- the centerpiece of Governer Jeb Bush's education policy which entitles students of failing public schools to vouchers for private schools, including religious schools -- was ruled unconstitutional by the 1st District Court of Appeal. "'Courts do... [ Continue reading: ] 17 August, 2004 Archaeologists in Israel claimed yesterday to have found a cave where they believe John the Baptist anointed many of his disciples. Carvings on the walls of the cave, which is about 2 ½ miles from the preacher's hometown of Ein... [ Continue reading: ] 17 August, 2004 "'I think the thing about our country that you must understand is that one of the most valuable aspects of America is that people can choose church or not church, and they're equally American. That is a vital part of... [ Continue reading: ] 17 August, 2004 Hugo Chavez mixes metaphors: Soldier of God, leader of a social revolution, beats evil emperor in an "'Olympics of democracy.'"... [ Continue reading: ] 17 August, 2004 Pity the heathens: A new study conducted by marketing company Euro RSCG Worldwide looks at attitudes about sex, religion and infidelity in five different countries. 39% of American respondents agreed that "my religious beliefs factor into my sexual behavior," as... [ Continue reading: ]  Bible Porn Erik Hanson: "Once, when I was eight, I knelt down at my bed alongside my mother, admitted I was a sinner, and asked Jesus Christ into my heart. Once, when I was eleven, I stood up at a Bible campfire and promised my peers and elders that I would earnestly strive to bring my unsaved friend to church. And once when I was 22, among ten high school boys whose souls had been entrusted to me for a week, I sat down on the carpet and read them, for their edification, Bible porn..." Read more at Killing the Buddha. [ Continue reading: ] Fragmented Journalism Jeff Sharlet: Pamela Constable has been reporting from abroad for nearly two decades, and for The Washington Post since 1999; she's currently the paper's bureau chief in Kabul. As she tells us time and again throughout her new memoir, Fragments of Grace, she's seen it all and done most of it, too. She's talked her way into war zones, stared down dictators and gone undercover -- literally, beneath a burqa -- in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Fragments of Grace is her summary of what she's learned as a journalist but also as a human being, a woman in search of "meaning." What did she find? Very little that you haven't heard before... [ Continue reading: ] 16 August, 2004 NPR reports on the controversial new "Buddha Bar" of Waikiki Beach, Hawaii, the name of which sparked a letter-writing campaign among Buddhists in Hawaii, who asked how Christians "would feel about seeing a 'Jesus Bar.'" Mary Kaye Ritz, of The... [ Continue reading: ] The Trouble with Sadr Hugh Graham reports for the new Canadian glossy The Walrus on Iran's "great game" with the clerics of Iraq. Everybody, it seems, wants a piece of Moqtada al-Sadr -- and everyone, even Iran's most hardcore theocrats -- is finding that he's harder to handle than they imagined. [ Continue reading: ] 16 August, 2004 "There are more secular humanists than there are observant Jews or Muslims -- but one would never know it from the makeup of supposedly ecumenical civic rituals that are ecumenical only for those who believe, to paraphrase Bush, that God... [ Continue reading: ] 16 August, 2004 A new documentary on President Bush, George W. Bush: Faith in the White House, is due to be released shortly. The documentary's producer David W. Balsiger explains his slightly bewildering motivation for making the film: to reveal a side of... [ Continue reading: ] 16 August, 2004 Uwe Siemon-Netto of United Press International can't conceive of a "more feminine, loving atmosphere than that of Lourdes." Dedicated to the virgin Mary, it's "much in keeping with the attributes of the woman 'who in her deepest and original being... [ Continue reading: ] 16 August, 2004 There's nothing religious about Frank Schaeffer's furious denunciation of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 -- except for its location within the pages of the latest issue of Christianity Today. Christianity Today is the flagship magazine of evangelical America, a smart, polished... [ Continue reading: ]  15 August, 2004 The President says he's a "soldier of God." His inspiration is Jesus. And he's fighting the "emperor of evil." More Bush Bible babble? Nope -- just the latest from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who today faces a recall referendum. On... [ Continue reading: ] The Wandering Weiss Steve Weiss, formerly of Protocols, formerly of Forward, formerly of Fiddish, has a new blog: Canonist. Real reporting about religion and politics. [ Continue reading: ]  Ritual Remnick The New Yorker's David Remnick on political convention rituals: "To read these speeches is to encounter not only the expectable baloney but a form as unwavering as Hopi wedding rites or the Mourner’s Kaddish. They are not called convention speeches for nothing. These are rituals designed less to broadcast detailed policy than to armor the speaker against the onslaught to come, speeches in which George McGovern waxes muscular about providing the 'shield of our strength' to our weaker allies and George W. talks of 'learning to protect the natural world around us' and changing “the tone of Washington to one of civility and respect.” Still, conventions, like all rituals, reveal more than they seem to." The Revealer couldn't have said it better, but we did say it sooner. Jay Rosen: "Democratic National Ritual"; Jeff Sharlet: "Don't Forget the Bodies." [ Continue reading: ] All Too Uncommon Wood's Lot is one of our favorite sites, a truly graceful compendium of art, politics, philosophy, and religion. Such as this obscure and clever treatise, by Manuel de Dieguez. A sample: "The American defeat in Iraq will be a terrifying theological trauma, because it will be the public proof of the disowning of the nation of the chosen ones by the divinity. Naturally, all this will be happening in the non-explored depths, therefore carcinogenic, of the religious unconscious of the nation." If you can make it through that, discard the bad habits you've picked up reading Slate, Salon, or the Weekly Standard (written at fifth, sixth, and eighth-grade reading levels, respectively) and proceed to Uncommon Thought Journal for "The Religious American Unconscious Caught in the Trap of Torture." [ Continue reading: ]  13 August, 2004 Pregnant by Jesus? The BBC reports that one of Britain's fastest growing churches is claiming a number of "miracle babies" for its congregation. But the Church of England suspects less-divine intervention: human trafficking.... [ Continue reading: ] 13 August, 2004 "The only word in the Texas [state] Republican Platform repeated as often as the word 'God' is the word 'Homosexual.'" Does that mean Texas Republicans think God is gay? Brent Brumley investigates...... [ Continue reading: ] 13 August, 2004 Consecrated virginity is on the rise... Tim Townsend reports for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.... [ Continue reading: ]  12 August, 2004 The Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf has had a dual historical role as both holy shrine and rallying point against foreign forces. Henry Chu and Teresa Watanabe of The Los Angeles Times focus on the mosque at the center of... [ Continue reading: ] 12 August, 2004 A 1991 Canadian provincial law, the Arbitration Act, has been supporting the practice of sharia law in Ontario to mediate legal disputes such as divorce and child custody, Susan Bourette reports in The Christian Science Monitor. The law, intended to... [ Continue reading: ] Rock It, Redeem It, Just Vote! (So Long as It's for the Right Candidate) By Jeff Sharlet: Julia Duin at The Washington Times is a tough, sharp-eyed religion reporter, alert to the broader political and cultural significance of intra-denominational squabbles and the kind of religious pronouncements that at first blush seem empty of meaning. That's why her report in today's Times on Redeem the Vote, a group created to register young voters at evangelical pop concerts, is so disappointing. [ Continue reading: ] 12 August, 2004 The Anti-Defamation League has condemned Ralph Nader for comments suggesting that President Bush and Congress were "puppets" of the Israeli government, Brian Faler of The Washington Post reports. The ADF objected to Nader's characterization of Israel as a "puppeteer," as... [ Continue reading: ]  Can Somebody Say Awoman? Every now and then you come across a prayer that is so crazy, so ecstatic, so much in love with... something that it works for you even if you don't believe half of what it says. Rob Brezsny's prayer to a "Dear Goddess, sweet Goddess, You sly universal virus with no f------ opinion" is one such prayer, and it's worth looking at even if you don't believe anything it says... [ Continue reading: ] And the Devil Likes Schlitz God apparently prefers Coors. Peter Coors, that is, the brewery heir who won yesterday's Republican primary for the open Senate seat from Colorado. "'For the last couple of weeks, I've been thanking God for such a tough race,' Coors said Tuesday night at his rally at Coors Field in Denver," reports The Denver Post. "'It toughens me up for what's ahead. And tonight I thank God for this great victory.'" But it's a bit more complicated than divine intervention... [ Continue reading: ] 11 August, 2004 Father of fury, Father of dust: The Guardian's Rory McCarthy talks to the first-known Britons to join the Shia rebels in Najaf: two young men, raised in England, who have returned to Iraq to fight the occupying U.S. troops. The... [ Continue reading: ] 11 August, 2004 South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster enters the fray regarding Great Falls's appeal of the federal court order preventing religion-specific prayers in town meetings. McMaster's office filed an Amicus brief in support of the town's appeal, arguing that the court's... [ Continue reading: ] 11 August, 2004 Jim Towey, head of the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, addressed leaders of Maine's Catholic Charities last week, promising to fight "discriminatory" or "bullying" local governments that impede federal funding of religious groups. In 2003, the AP... [ Continue reading: ] 11 August, 2004 "[Pope] John Paul plays the part of Ronald Reagan to [Cardinal Joseph] Ratzinger's Pat Buchanan," writes John L. Allen Jr. in The Miami Herald, profiling Ratzinger, the Catholic Church's doctrinal czar, and the Pope's intellectual guru since 1981. Ratzinger, who... [ Continue reading: ]  10 August, 2004 Veli-Matti Karkkainen, a Finnish theologian who has taught at Fuller Theological Seminary, the United States' largest interdenominational seminary, since 2000, was forced to leave the country at the end of July. Chris Herlinger, writing for Ecumenical News International, reports on... [ Continue reading: ] 10 August, 2004 A month after the news broke of the Bush-Cheney campaign's 22-point plan to reach conservative churches, causing angry denunciations from Christians left and right, the story has settled comfortably into the culture war narrative. David Kirkpatrick at The New York... [ Continue reading: ] God Willing? David Domke examines how Bush's use of religion helped sell the war on terror (and how the press ate it up): "'In a time of crisis, the certainty conveyed by what I call "political fundamentalism" put forward by the administration silenced the Democrats and had great appeal to the press. And yet with so many around the globe expressing a different view, the press failed its readers by uncritically echoing these fundamentalist messages.'" [ Continue reading: ] 10 August, 2004 A view from the outside: Michael Valpy, of Canada's Globe and Mail, peers over the border at his funny, fervent neighbors down south. Valpy spoke with Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, who told... [ Continue reading: ] 10 August, 2004 The tombs of Muslim soldiers who fought for France during WWII were desecrated by vandals who painted swatiskas and other neo-nazi graffiti on the graves. Read more.... [ Continue reading: ]  9 August, 2004 Blogging from Baghdad: "I always love passing by the churches. It gives me a momentary sense that everything must be right in the world to see them standing lovely and bright under the Baghdad sun, not far from the local... [ Continue reading: ] Raving Atheism Raving Atheist: President Bush is a Cancer, born with Leo rising and the Moon in Libra. Senator Kerry, a Sagittarius, was born under a full moon with Sagittarius rising and the Moon in Gemini. Americans have elected more Cancers than Sagittari (9.5% versus 7.1%), but Kerry may still prevail insofar as the 180° polarity of Gemini/Sagittarius is the axis of thought, communication and education -- not to mention a jumping polarity which is as enthusiastically American as apple pie. On the other hand, Bush has Saturn at 26 degrees of Cancer in the 12th house, and, astrologically-speaking, Saturn is the judge and the equalizer. If this doesn't seem like a meaningful way to talk about the presidential campaign, I'm afraid the standard religious analysis is no improvement... [ Continue reading: ] 9 August, 2004 Pray for the persecuted comedian: "We had several conversations in which he complained about the liberal media, and he believes very strongly that there’s an anti-religious bias in this country, and particularly an anti-Christian bias...He kept complaining that he wasn’t... [ Continue reading: ] They Have What to Say Hamodia, America's only English-language Jewish daily, was conceived as an antidote to mainstream press. For Stephen Vider, writing at Nextbook, it seemed like an opening into an insular world. Instead, he found that it functions as another closed door. "Hamodia didn't cover the Abu Ghraib scandal for a week and then, the editors deleted the key paragraph from the wire story that described the abuse and the photographic evidence. When I realized the omission, I felt oddly enraged at both the editors and the readers who trusted them, as though I'd uncovered a groundbreaking scandal of my own: Hasidic newspaper keeps subscribers in the dark." [ Continue reading: ] 9 August, 2004 Some South Carolina local gov leaders are defying the recent ruling of the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals by continuing to pray to a specific god -- that'd be Jesus -- at government meetings. One county councilman, Tim Scott,... [ Continue reading: ] 9 August, 2004 Israel's Interior Ministry is investigating the appearance of a new question on the entry forms tourists must fill out before entering the country. Hilary Leila Krieger of The Jerusalem Post reports that the new question, which asks tourists to identify... [ Continue reading: ] 9 August, 2004 Christian organizations in Indonesia plan to file a class action lawsuit against the country's government for maintaining a 1969 decree that they say unfairly regulates the construction of places of worship. The decree, which in part requires a religious community... [ Continue reading: ]  7 August, 2004 Why Bush will win: "Bush isn't a fire-and-brimstone preacher, talking about sinners in the hands of an angry God. He's a hippie priest..." Slate's Chris Suellentrop reports from a W. revival. Suellentrop, a Catholic, is tone-deaf to the many meanings... [ Continue reading: ] The Kingdom is Always Coming The NY Times' "Beliefs" column often fits all too comfortably into its Saturday ghetto of stodginess and irrelevance. But Peter Steinfels performs a valuable service this week in calling attention to a new book about the forgotten link in American religion, Christopher H. Evans' The Kingdom is Always But Coming: A Life of Walter Rauschenbusch. Understanding Rauschenbusch is the key to understanding the "social gospel"; and understanding the social gospel, Steinfels reminds us, is crucial if one is to understand today's blend of religion and politics, on both the left and the right. Considered by Harvey Cox to be the ancestor of liberation theology, the social gospel also informs the Christian right's crusade "to regenerate society in accord with God's will," as Steinfels characterizes Rauschenbusch's liberal mission. Read the article. Buy the book. [ Continue reading: ] 7 August, 2004 The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has called upon Secretary of State Colin Powell to immediately issue a list of countries of particular concern (CPCs) with regards to their violations of religious freedom, reports the Indo-Asian News Service.... [ Continue reading: ] 7 August, 2004 "'I believe Americans must heed this call and turn away from our wicked ways,'" preached Tony Campolo. The congregation said "amen," lifted their hands or made the sign of the cross. "Then Campolo froze for a moment, as an hourglass... [ Continue reading: ] 7 August, 2004 Rich Copley of The Lexington Herald-Ledger reports on the latest attempt to hip-ify the Bible. Welsh evangelical performance artist Rob Lacey's The Word on the Street, as Copley describes it, is based on a fairly tired premise: taking "familiar texts... [ Continue reading: ] 7 August, 2004 John Kerry supports the Missouri ban on gay marriage (a state constitution amendment that passed with 70% of the vote on Tuesday), reports Mark Z. Barabak of The LA Times. "We've always argued the states will be capable of taking... [ Continue reading: ]  6 August, 2004 Christianity Today's Steven Gertz draws attention to another bill currently before the Senate, overlooked as attention focused on the Federal Marriage Amendment. The measure calls for severe penalties against those committing crimes for religious reasons, and was swiftly condemned by... [ Continue reading: ] 6 August, 2004 Karen Armstrong: "'In a society where warfare and violence becomes endemic, religion gets sucked into that. Religion comes from where our dreams come from, and our dreams become disturbed, everything about us becomes disturbed in times of war and destruction.'"... [ Continue reading: ] 6 August, 2004 Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson -- until yesterday, DNC religion advisor -- caved in as a result of the ruckus raised by Catholic League President William Donohue, who accused Peterson of being too liberal and "anti-religion" because she supported Michael Newdow... [ Continue reading: ] 6 August, 2004 Is Wal-Mart incompatable with God? The Catholic Church of Guelph, Ontario thinks so, and has raised opposition to the super-chain's attempt to build a new store adjacent to their Ignatius Jesuit Centre, a rural property that includes a retreat house... [ Continue reading: ]  5 August, 2004 BP News, the publication of the Southern Baptist Convention, and the anti-abortion LifeSite gleefully pick up the same quote from Julia Duin's article yesterday in The Washington Times -- William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil... [ Continue reading: ] Black Christians, the Homosexuality Debate, and the American Creed By Kim Pearson: All of a sudden, it matters tremendously what black Christians all over the world think about sexuality. When the Episcopal Church of the United States of America consecrated openly gay clergyman Eugene V. Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003, African and Caribbean leaders of the Anglican Church led the revolt that has brought the denomination to the brink of a historic split. When, in June 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that anti-sodomy laws were unconstitutional, social and political conservatives salivated over the prospect that opinion polls showing heightened African-American opposition to gay marriage might cause some black American voters to vote Republican... [ Continue reading: ] 5 August, 2004 Malaysian censors have approved Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, reports Rajan P. of Malasiankini, but with one binding circumstance: only Christians will be allowed to watch it and tickets will only be sold in churches. The obvious question... [ Continue reading: ] 5 August, 2004 "Unbuckling the Bible belt" in Winnipeg, Canada: The Winnipeg Sun talks to Simon and Ruth Clarence, an evangelical pastor and Christian writer, respectively, about the Bible-based sex education classes they began teaching about six years ago.... [ Continue reading: ] 5 August, 2004 "'We're here to let people know that they have to get ready for that. We have to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. People need to realize that they have to get right with God.' Having just... [ Continue reading: ]  4 August, 2004 Vijay Dutt of the U.K.'s Hindustan Times reports that some "militant" Muslim doctors in inner-city areas with large ethnic population, such as Leeds, Bradford and London, are refusing to treat patients with sex diseases and AIDS, viewing the diseases as... [ Continue reading: ] 4 August, 2004 The critical tools that historians, linguists and archaeologists have applied to the Bible for about 150 years are beginning to be applied to the Koran, Nicholas D. Kristof writes in The New York Times, and with what Kristof terms "explosive"... [ Continue reading: ] 4 August, 2004 "State security officers were given a free hand to do whatever they see fit...This happened to the Scientologists. This happened to the Bahiis. It happened to different people who actually deviate from what the state sees as the official religion,... [ Continue reading: ] 4 August, 2004 "'He's talking like the Knights of Columbus'": G. Robert Hillman and Susan Hogan of The Dallas Morning News report on President Bush's speech before the Knight of Columbus, the world's largest Catholic fraternal organization gathered in Dallas for its annual... [ Continue reading: ] 4 August, 2004 Prostitution resurfaces in China, but so does religion, with an number of Christian churches cropping up along the country's Route 312. NPR's Rob Gifford reports on the resurgence of both prostitution and religion after the decline of communist influence, in... [ Continue reading: ] 4 August, 2004 Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved an amendment to their state constitutional yesterday, banning gay marriage, Monica Davey of The New York Times reports. At least nine other states -- and maybe as many as 12 -- will likely vote on similar... [ Continue reading: ]  3 August, 2004 " target=_blank>CBC News reports that the Vatican is setting up a sports department "to move the Roman Catholic Church closer to a 'nerve centre' of modern life," with the hope that sports can become a new avenue for evangelization. "The... [ Continue reading: ] 3 August, 2004 "Yes, Virginia, the Religious Right has more than one theocratic trick up its sleeve." Maureen Farrell at BuzzFlash gives an exhaustive run-down on the legal tactics being employed in the name of culture war: the House of Representatives falling back... [ Continue reading: ] 3 August, 2004 Addressing a group of devotees last week about the increased interest in religion, even in atheistic countries like China, the Dalai Lama said that people can generally be divided into three categories in terms of their spiritual inclination: those who... [ Continue reading: ] 3 August, 2004 The answer is...Islam? So says Rod Dreher in The Dallas Morning News. "Because we in the secular West have made God a mere hobby, we don't comprehend how devout Muslims perceive reality. Our materialist-minded leaders prattle on about solving the... [ Continue reading: ] 3 August, 2004 Yesterday, top Muslim clerics and political leaders from nearly every major Muslim group in Iraq -- including the revered Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the Muslim Scholars Association (a relatively moderate group with ties to the insurgency) and even... [ Continue reading: ] 3 August, 2004 At a rally in Greeneville, Tennessee last Sunday, the Ten Commandments monument at the heart of the Alabama Supreme Court controversy made a stop on their national tour to be honored by a group including many veterans. Keynote speaker Jim... [ Continue reading: ]  2 August, 2004 Chris Weinkopf, writing for The American Enterprise, weighs in late on PBS's "The Jesus Factor." His verdict: the media is afraid of God and "The Jesus Factor" is a reliable inkblot test that says "'more about the viewer than the... [ Continue reading: ] 2 August, 2004 "The scapegoat ritual is rooted in a profoundly dualistic worldview. It makes it clear that while the pharmakos is doomed, all those who stand with the community are safe and pure. As Bush put it: 'He who is not with... [ Continue reading: ] 2 August, 2004 Salon's Laura Miller finds an inadvertent eloquence in the almost-simultaneous publication of Alister McGrath's The Twilight of Atheism and Sam Harris' The End of Faith. Her appreciation doesn't extend to the texts though; both books, Miller writes, "are acts of... [ Continue reading: ] 2 August, 2004 The AP reports, with no noticeable sense of irony, that John Kerry is "talking more openly about his personal connection to God and guns." Obviously we're supposed to read this as shorthand -- depending where you're coming from -- for... [ Continue reading: ] Spin and the Religion Reporter Bob Smietana: The conventions were still weeks away when President Bush’s campaign started linking John Kerry to a Nazi in a web campaign video. Whether that’s a step up or down from the Reagan years, when Democrats were Communists is unclear. But it’s not a good omen of things to come. A religion writer covering the campaign might at least ask the president to explain how this Nazi ad fits with his admiration of Jesus as a political philosopher. Jesus, you may recall, is the one who said that calling your brother “a fool” could land you in hell... [ Continue reading: ] |