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   The Creationists are Coming! Creationism in a lab coat: "better to appear scientific than holy." Wired News' Evan Ratliff reports on the "Intelligent Design" (ID) movement to introduce antievolution theory into classrooms -- recently successful in Ohio, where a school board has voted to... [ Continue reading: ] The Enthusiasm Gap? Cliché-in-the-coining: For those who weren't yet cynical about the campaign or political reporting, The Washington Post counts the canyons we're shouting aross: the God gap, party gap, gender gap, generation gap, ideology gap, racial-ethnic divide, veterans divide, grad-school divide, and... [ Continue reading: ] Ammo for his Enemy It's a shame the job of disassembling George W. Bush: Faith in the White House fell to The New York Times' Frank Rich. If just the facts of Rich's account of the film are correct, it's the worst kind of hagiography, thuggish and hokey at the same time. But the same adjectives are fairly applied to Rich's review...Rich's confusion is the kind of stupid mistake that makes Christian conservatives believe in the myth of the liberal media. [ Continue reading: ] Søren in Georgia Henry County commissioners in Georgia have put up another Ten Commandments display in another courthouse, this time flanked by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. With buddies like these, the county claims that the Ten Commandments are historical, not... [ Continue reading: ] God, Save England "Country Sports" a religion? Musicals a religion? Quick, someone save the un- (or is it over-) churched souls of Britain!... [ Continue reading: ] Worse to Come "When we learn everything about that prison, we're going to be mighty ashamed...This group of zealots changed the way our country is viewed. The world doesn't view us as moral any more." Seymour M. Hersh, on Jon Stewart's The Daily... [ Continue reading: ]  Hurricane Holidays "'In a sense we've been having Sukkot the last two weeks!'" Florida Jews experience a more literal celebration of Sukkot, a holiday that traditionally calls on them to dwell in temporary structures that expose them to the elements. Amy Sherman,... [ Continue reading: ] Taliban Soldiers John Walker Lindh's attorney has requested a reduced sentence for his client in light of the release, this week, of Yasser Esam Hamdi -- another American citizen (who grew up in Saudi Arabia) held on suspicion of fighting for the... [ Continue reading: ] Mormons in New York "What you won't find on the net are figures of how much the [LDS] Church has spent in its campaign against the legalization of gay marriages. Clearly the Church sees this institution as one force that will unravel the family... [ Continue reading: ] Wise Like Serpents "Moral thunder" exits the stem-cell debate. Or maybe just goes under cover. Greg Johnson of The Los Angeles Times notes the shift of stem-cell opponents' argument in California from abortion-tinged "life" issues to concerns about cost. If that strikes research... [ Continue reading: ] Born Again or Not? Do you believe George W. Bush has been born again? 38% say yes; 43% say no; 19% of the gentle souls responding to MSNBC's insta-poll demur that there's no way to know for sure. Based solely on MSNBC's adjacent story,... [ Continue reading: ] Bad Brokaw! No Cookie. No peace for the wicked: FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) issues an action alert to chastise NBC's Tom Brokaw for his rationalizing report on the GOP campaign claiming that "'liberals want to ban the bible.'" "It's clear how one... [ Continue reading: ]  Playboy Theology Chris Walton of Philocrites points us to religion reporter Cathleen Falsani's Chicago Sun-Times interview with Hugh Hefner. Falsani gets the obvious over with first: yes, Hefner considers himself "blessed," and is a grateful, grateful man. Her exploration of the playboy's... [ Continue reading: ] Something Bad Has Begun "The fact that I have sympathy for ordinary people in the world who are suffering from occupation, tyranny, poverty or war is human and has nothing to do with politics or terrorism...I have never harbored any ill will toward people... [ Continue reading: ] "Wrong" for Catholics "Bush salts his public statements with religious references as a way of preempting challenge...Bush sponsors 'faith based' social projects to disguise his agenda of dismantling structures of government that provide basic human needs. Bush cites religion as a way of... [ Continue reading: ] "Partnering" Public Schools Paul Vallas, CEO of the 210,000-student Philadelphia School District, is attempting to form large-scale partnerships with local religious groups, asking them to "adopt" one of the district's 276 schools in the hope that the congregants will help with tutoring, mentoring,... [ Continue reading: ] New Age Defense The New York Times' Leslie Wayne finds New Mexico's warrior-saints: the "New Age" Sikh Dharma compound where followers of Yogi Bhajan are successfully running Akal Security, one of the most profitable homeland security companies in the country.... [ Continue reading: ] Divine Taxonomy Animal, vegetable or mineral? Kari Lynn Dean, of Wired News reports on the efforts of Jonathan Keats, head of the International Association for Divine Taxonomy, to place God on the phyogenetic map -- the scientific tree of life. The project,... [ Continue reading: ]  27 September, 2004 Banning gay marriage is, like, awesome! The In Defense of Marriage Coalition -- many member churches of which have been accused of coercing parishioners to support Oregon's ballot initiative, Measure 36, which would amend the state constitution to outlaw gay... [ Continue reading: ] 27 September, 2004 Also not the C of E: Hunters in the U.K. are converting to the "Free Church of Country Sports," at the rate of up to 700 new pilgrims a day, in order to protect fox hunting from a proposed government... [ Continue reading: ] 27 September, 2004 The Bible-code set, exegetes of the Mayan calendar, "novelty theorists," and myriad cosmic seers: David Ritchie of The New York Press explores end-times culture in America and discovers that the sky is always falling.... [ Continue reading: ] The Gay Shall Inherit the Church Jana Prikryl: For those of us in the country's secular minority, it seems intuitive that serious Christians and serious gays do not mix. But that is simply not so: Christianity itself is changing as homosexuality gains an ever more unapologetic place in our culture. [ Continue reading: ] 27 September, 2004 A series of sermons preaching against gay marriage drew crowds and protesters to Oak Park, Illinois' Calvary Memorial Church, which yesterday hosted a "reformed homosexual" guest speaker. Grace Aduroja, of The Chicago Tribune, reports that the five-Sunday series has sparked... [ Continue reading: ]  "Too Much Pot, Too Much Beer" Revealer contributor Patton Dodd gets a starred review from Publishers Weekly for his first book, My Faith So Far: A Story of Conversion and Confusion. It's Slacker meets Thomas Merton, and better than both. [ Continue reading: ] 26 September, 2004 The Last Temptation of Shazia: Salon.com's Priya Jain interviews controversial female Muslim stand-up comic, Shazia Mirza, whose act -- often focusing on politics and Muslim tradition ("'The women in my family all use the same passport'") -- has garnered a... [ Continue reading: ] 26 September, 2004 "We are not single issue voters." Sojourners wonders about the other religious campaign issues. (Thanks to Except for These Chains.)... [ Continue reading: ] 26 September, 2004 Hurricane theology: Jamaican Christian ministers are contending that God answered thousands of prayers by redirecting Hurricane Ivan away from the island, while the Daily Kos has recanted on his earlier theory that God was using the storms to bolster Bush's... [ Continue reading: ]  25 September, 2004 Dream with the fishes: A Georgia company, Eternal Reefs, has fused memorials with sea conservation to make "reef balls": mixing cremation ashes with marine-grade concrete and forming an artificial reef, a home for fish and coral. Iver Peterson of The... [ Continue reading: ] 25 September, 2004 "'"You need to get on your knees every night and you need to pray to the Lord to send you a football team,"'" Roger McDaniel used to tell his home-schooled son, who begged to be sent to public school in... [ Continue reading: ]  24 September, 2004 The Republican Party admits to sending mass mailings to Arkansas and West Virginia residents warning that "'liberals'" seek to ban the Bible as part of its effort to mobilize religious voters for President Bush, reports David Kirkpatrick of The New... [ Continue reading: ] 24 September, 2004 An Islamic scholar from Virginia, Ali al-Timimi, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he urged a group of Muslim-American men to join a holy war against the United States in the days after 9/11. A group... [ Continue reading: ] 24 September, 2004 "'They had this idea the blacks or the so-called slaves cannot be equal to their masters, even in terms of religion. So if it is a slave mosque, they can always destroy it.'" Sudarsan Raghavan of The Philadelphia Inquirer reports... [ Continue reading: ] 24 September, 2004 A Florida case involving a brain-damaged woman kept alive against her husband's will, and Gov. Jeb Bush's active support for the woman's parents -- Roman Catholics, like Bush, who adhere to Pope John Paul II's statement in the spring that... [ Continue reading: ] 24 September, 2004 A local paper gives a snapshot-photo of American belief: Ohio farmer, Jay Power, has painted a Ten Commandments mural on the side of his barn as an effort to earn back God's blessing on the nation. "'We do silly things,'"... [ Continue reading: ] 24 September, 2004 After a heated and emotional debate, the House of Representatives voted yesterday to approve an "Under God" bill that would prevent federal courts from hearing cases challenging the Constitutionality of that phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance. Democrats claimed that... [ Continue reading: ]  23 September, 2004 "'If one'" -- that'd be a gay person -- "'ever looks at me'" -- and that would be Jimmy Swaggart -- "'like that, I'm going to kill him and tell God he died.'" GetReligion traces the history of Swaggart's overheated... [ Continue reading: ] 23 September, 2004 Iraq's most powerful Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, has threatened to withdraw his support for nationwide elections unless Shiites are given increased representation. The New York Times' Dexter Filkins reports that Sistani is concerned that the election process... [ Continue reading: ] 23 September, 2004 "'If my heart really, honestly desires a nice Cadillac...would there be something terribly wrong with me saying, "Lord, it is the desire of my heart to have a nice car...and I'll use it for your glory?"'" William Lobdell, of The... [ Continue reading: ] 23 September, 2004 Conclusive proof at The Daily Kos that God is a Republican.... [ Continue reading: ] 23 September, 2004 A survey released by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, "The Decline of Religious Identity in the United States," found a rise (16% up from less than 10%) in respondents who declined to identify with any particular faith. This... [ Continue reading: ] 23 September, 2004 "'We are now being coerced to accept and believe that a new political-cum-religious doctrine has arisen, namely that there is but one political god, George W. Bush, and Tony Blair is his prophet.'" Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe objects to his... [ Continue reading: ] 23 September, 2004 Updated Deal: Julia Duin describes the threats of five Crisis columnists to quit unless Deal resigned. The columnists, including Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and Notre Dame philosophy professor Ralph McInerny, were angry about... [ Continue reading: ]  22 September, 2004 Deal Hudson has announced that he will resign as publisher of Crisis magazine at year's end as a result of the sexual harassment scandal that cost him his position as religion advisor to President Bush last month. In an email... [ Continue reading: ] 22 September, 2004 UPI's Anwar Iqbal has made a stunning discovery about Islam: While it may seem "more like a political ideology" than a religion to you and me, Muslims, in fact, "say they also find spiritual fulfillment in their faith." In a... [ Continue reading: ] 22 September, 2004 Miracle Babies: The BBC's Ishbel Matheson speaks with Kenyan mothers who believe their children were stolen in connection with the Gilbert Deya Ministry "Miracle Baby" scandal. Deya, an evangelical pastor and self-described "Archbishop" based in England, claims that infertile women... [ Continue reading: ] 22 September, 2004 A plane carrying 250 passengers, among them singer Cat Stevens, was diverted 600 miles off its course so that FBI agents could escort the musician off the flight in Bangor, Maine and send him back to England. Stevens, who converted... [ Continue reading: ] We See Empire Kathryn Joyce: What does a list of dropped clichés like this mean, besides that "The Fall (Decay, Decline) of the Roman Empire" has joined "Orwellian" and "apocalyptic" in the ranks of grossly overused political and cultural metaphors? [ Continue reading: ]  21 September, 2004 Exasperated by cell phones ringing during mass, four Catholic churches in Mexico are illegally jamming the cell phone signals with Israeli-made transmitters, of the kind used to protect officials from bugs and bombs detonated by phones.... [ Continue reading: ] Indonesia: "How He Did It" You can learn a lot about a person by looking at their bookshelf, The New York Times would have us believe. Jane Perlez' report on Indonesia's just-elected new president, General Yudhoyono -- said to be a great reader -- closes with a glimpse of the general's library: a little bit of Tom Clancy, Harry Summers on strategy and Vietnam, and a volume titled Napolean: How He Did It. Is the Times trying to tell us something? [ Continue reading: ] 21 September, 2004 "Looking for the right man, the right chocolate, the right friends -- and the right relationship with God." The New York Times' Joshua Kurlantzick attends the third annual convention of Christian romance and fiction writers to investigate the burgeoning field... [ Continue reading: ] 21 September, 2004 A New York man has been arrested for using alcohol and pornography to recruit teenagers into an "'organized ring'" to deface a Westchester County synagogue and a train station with neo-Nazi stickers, the AP reports.... [ Continue reading: ] 21 September, 2004 Six Georgia legislators have asked to step in as defendants in a lawsuit brought by the Georgia ACLU and Lambda Legal that seeks to stop a ballot referendum on adding a same-sex marriage ban to the state's constitution. Georgia already... [ Continue reading: ] 21 September, 2004 The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson filed for bankruptcy yesterday. It is the second U.S. diocese, after Portland's, to seek court protection due to the cost of clerical sexual abuse cases.... [ Continue reading: ]  Action vs. Archetype The first round of stories about the Smithsonian's new museum of the American Indian is over, and The Revealer awards first prize to The Washington Post's Libby Copeland for "Guiding Spirit" -- which reveals that "spirit" is relative when it comes to museum-craft. "What's sacred?" writes Copeland. "Words get slippery here..." [ Continue reading: ] 20 September, 2004 Lebanon bans The Da Vinci Code : "'We have to work for public interest, banning anything that could worsen sectarian prejudices or offend religions.'"... [ Continue reading: ] 20 September, 2004 Two prominent Sunni clerics in Iraq, Sheikh Hazem Zeidi and Sheikh Muhammad Jadu were shot by gunmen last night and today, adding to fears of a possible Sunni-Shia conflict. Both belonged to the Muslim Scholars' Association, a conservative group that... [ Continue reading: ] 20 September, 2004 Lashing back against your hippie elders isn't just for Young Republican preps: Teresa Watanabe of The Los Angeles Times reports on the seminary class of the early '80s -- a generation ordained under Pope John Paul II that rebelled against... [ Continue reading: ] 20 September, 2004 A New Jersey Six Flags amusement park was besieged by complaints for holding a "Muslim Youth Day," on a weekday when the park would have otherwise remained closed. The New York Times' Jill P. Capuzzo reports that company headquarters were... [ Continue reading: ]  19 September, 2004 Doug Grow, of The Minneapolis Star Tribune, reports on the tempest-in-a-teapot in central Minnesota's Renville County, after Texas-transplant Rick Blauvelt attempted to form a "Teen Age Republicans" chapter with an ad that read: "'This group will be a grass-roots movement... [ Continue reading: ] 19 September, 2004 "'If a religious institution chooses to ordain a known child molester that it felt had truly repented, it has that Constitutional right. The government may not second-guess that choice.'" Attorney for the Roman Catholic Church of Northern California, Paul Gaspari,... [ Continue reading: ] 19 September, 2004 "When you give to God, you're simply loaning to the Lord and He gives it right on back."William Lobdell, of The Los Angeles Times, reports a familiar story, about the extravagence of televangelist and Trinity Broadcasting Network head, Pastor Paul... [ Continue reading: ] 19 September, 2004 Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who turned the fate of Indian trains over to Lord Vishwakarma, "God of machines," this July, reports that his piety has been successful, and the recent decrease in train accidents is the result of... [ Continue reading: ]  18 September, 2004 Anti-Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) activists meeting in Nairobi called for comprehensive legislation banning the practice, which removes part of all of a young girl's genitalia, using, in part, this rationale: "'It has no basis in any religion.'" While we're centainly... [ Continue reading: ] 18 September, 2004 Archbishop of Wales, Dr. Barry Morgan, has firmly aligned himself with the liberal side of the Anglican split, declaring that, with the great persecution homosexuals already face in the world, "'We do not as a church want to do anything... [ Continue reading: ]  17 September, 2004 The Republican National Committee sends mailings to West Virginia voters warning that the Bible will be banned if Democrats win in November.... [ Continue reading: ] Randall Sullivan's The Miracle Detective: An Investigation of Holy Visions Scott Korb: It's become fairly commonplace among Christians and writers concerned with Christian mysteries to maintain that God has quite a sense of humor. In fact, Stephen Prothero concludes his chronicle of cherished images of Jesus in the United States, American Jesus (2004), with a figure of Jesus that has been gaining currency in America since the middle of the twentieth century; his head tilted back, and roaring with laughter -- we now have the Guffawing Jesus. In Randall Sullivan's The Miracle Detective: An Investigation of Holy Visions (2004), we learn that the joviality apple doesn't fall far from the tree. [ Continue reading: ] 17 September, 2004 A provision that cleared the House of Representatives last week went under the radar in the rest of the news: the measure would prohibit local, state or federal authorities from requiring any institution or health care professional to provide abortions,... [ Continue reading: ] 17 September, 2004 "'Buffy' addresses questions that have always interested Christians: Is there a hell? What will it take for me to go to heaven after I die? Can one individual save the world throuugh self-sacrifice? What will the apocalypse look like?" Ellen... [ Continue reading: ] 17 September, 2004 The Christian Science Monitor's G. Jeffrey MacDonald takes on an ambitious topic -- "What Does 'Jewishness' Mean Today" -- and finds that, on the 350th anniversary of American Jewry, "today's challenge is not for Jews to learn the ways of... [ Continue reading: ] 17 September, 2004 Jonah Fisher of the BBC investigates U.S. accusations of religious persecution in Eritrea and the country's two-year old "registration system" which requires groups to submit information about themseles in order to be allowed to worship. In Eritrea only Catholicism, Islam,... [ Continue reading: ] 17 September, 2004 Atlanta Archbishop, John Donoghue, issued a letter yesterday telling Catholics that abortion must outweigh every other issue at the polls, reports Gayle White of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Catholic voters may differ on other election debates, like war or capital punishment,... [ Continue reading: ]  16 September, 2004 Forget about Bob Jones University. Republicans know what's best for Catholics.... [ Continue reading: ] 16 September, 2004 Are Bush's religious beliefs "'as American as apple pie,'" as Father Richard John Neuhaus, arch-conservative editor of the Catholic journal First Things told The Washington Post's Alan Cooperman? You may never know, as Cooperman seems to have found out, and... [ Continue reading: ] 16 September, 2004 Another entry on the State Department's "blacklist" of countries violating religious freedom, North Korea, has been accused of severe repression and abuse of believers, particularly Christians, who have allegedly been imprisoned and tortured for reading the Bible, and even subjected... [ Continue reading: ] 16 September, 2004 Saudi Arabia has been placed on a U.S. "blacklist," reserved for countries whose record for religious freedom is deemed of "'particular concern.'" As in previous years, the State Department found that "'freedom of religion does not exist'" in Saudi Arabia,... [ Continue reading: ] 16 September, 2004 Lord Carey, the traditionalist former Archbishop of Canterbury, presided over the confirmation of 300 Virginian parishioners who were boycotting their own bishop over his support for gay cleric Gene Robinson. With Californian churches at war with their leadership, American parishes... [ Continue reading: ] 16 September, 2004 German Interior Minister Otto Schily has pledged his efforts to prevent a controversial Islamic conference, "The First Arab Islamic Congress in Europe," from being held next month in Berlin. Jewish critics claim that the congress's website promotes terrorism against Israel... [ Continue reading: ] 16 September, 2004 The Daily News reports that the mother of Michael Jackson's accuser has claimed that she and her kids were "handpicked" by God to take on the superstar and put him away for child molestation.... [ Continue reading: ] 16 September, 2004 A San Diego court case begins today, involving a high school student's attempt to wear a T-shirt that read, "Homosexuality Is Shameful," and "Our School Embraced What God Has Condemned," on last year's national "Day of Silence" -- an annual... [ Continue reading: ]  15 September, 2004 Madonna, and entourage (including Marla Trump, Demi Moore, and Donna Karan), are scheduled to arrive in Jerusalem today to celebrate Rosh Hashana and participate in the international congress of the Kabbalah Center. While in Israel, The Jerusalem Post reports, Madonna/Esther... [ Continue reading: ] 15 September, 2004 An Orthodox Washington synagogue has caused a small stir, reports The Washington Post's Caryle Murphy, for declaring itself "Washington's National Synagogue" -- a name, some reform congregation critics claim, which implies that the synagogue is representative of the larger Jewish... [ Continue reading: ] 15 September, 2004 "The first bumper sticker I saw when I arrived in the United States said 'Got Jesus?' So did the second one. And the third." The BBC's Richard Allen Greene tours religious America.... [ Continue reading: ] 15 September, 2004 Nanette Asimov of The San Francisco Chronicle talks to NPR's Jennifer Ludden about California's recent banning of a series of Scientology-based anti-drug lectures. While the program, Narconon, is secular and not officially linked to the church, Asimov says that there... [ Continue reading: ] 15 September, 2004 A Minnesota state employee can continue to post Christian political stickers on his car and in his cubicle, under a settlement agreement reached in his lawsuit.... [ Continue reading: ] 15 September, 2004 Turkey's governing party, A.K.P., abandoned its efforts to criminalize adultery after intense criticism and protest from women's groups, newspapers, and European Union officials who are considering Turkey's membership in the E.U. A supporter of the A.K.P. party, many members of... [ Continue reading: ]  "The Question of God" Questioned Jeff Sharlet: PBS’s latest God offering, "The Question of God," will no doubt be a well-researched program centered around the ideas and interpretations of its two stars -- Freud and C.S. Lewis -- and the man who has pitted them against one another, Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr. of Harvard. But both PBS and Beliefnet, which has interviewed Dr. Nicholi, are letting the good doctor avoid hard questions about the faith assumptions underlying his work. What does Dr. Nicholi, as the referee and rule setter of this imaginary debate, actually believe? [ Continue reading: ] Other People's Rituals The intersection of faith, politics, and "rolling spells," the "magick" more and more people believe will be required to get the country out of The Mess It's In..the creators of the National Day of Prayer probably never had anything like this in mind. But that's what happen when you create new rituals -- other people claim them for uses of their own. [ Continue reading: ] My Life in the Bush of Ghosts: "World Music" and the Commodification of Religious Experience: Professor Steve Feld of the University of New Mexico will explore what happens when sacred music is drawn into the expanding world market through three contested cases: (1) the “Qu’ran” track on the My Life in the Bush of Ghosts CD in the 80s, (2) Tibetan recordings by/with rock stars and their relationship with the explosion of Gregorian Chant music in the 90s, (3) the popularization of Appalachian “old time religion” recordings after 9/11. [ Continue reading: ] 14 September, 2004 "'They've done so much with outlawing and restricting access to abortion that they've set their sights on birth control because there's nothing else really they can do to further restrict abortion here in Wisconsin. Which is counter-intuitive because if you're... [ Continue reading: ] 14 September, 2004 The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), Sri Lanka's parliamentary party of Buddhist monks, has called for a Constitutional amendment declaring Buddhism the country's official State Religion. Until now, Buddhism has enjoyed a favored position as the country's foremost protected religion, but... [ Continue reading: ] 14 September, 2004 The requirement to state religion and grandfather's name on entry forms to Israel is being reconsidered with an eye to its abolishment.... [ Continue reading: ] 14 September, 2004 A new poll places Canada among the most secular countries in the world.... [ Continue reading: ] 14 September, 2004 "'Prior to 9/11, racial profiling was frequently referred to as "driving while black." Now, the practice can be more accurately characterized as driving, flying, walking, worshipping, shopping or staying at home while Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, Muslim or of Middle... [ Continue reading: ] 14 September, 2004 Tomorrow, PBS will begin airing its two-part special on "The Question of God": an imagined debate on the existence of God between the two heavyweights of atheism and Christianity, respectively, Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis. Paul O'Donnell interviews the imagined... [ Continue reading: ]  13 September, 2004 John Leland's New York Times report on Christian rap is about as embarrassing as you might expect (explaining that a youth pastor's exaltation, "'Yo, God is so ill,'" is in fact "a hip-hop term of praise"), but The Revealer is... [ Continue reading: ] 13 September, 2004 September roughly marks the 350th anniversary of Jewish history in America, and will be observed with numerous seminars and celebrations, the AP reports. According to an early Dutch document, the first Jews in the U.S. came to New York after... [ Continue reading: ] 13 September, 2004 A Democratic Senatorial candidate from South Carolina, Inez Tenenbaum, has begun running ads "subtly" identifying her as a Christian; in previous election campaigns, opponents made use of misconceptions about Tenenbaum's faith, referring to her in campaign fliers as an "anti-Christian... [ Continue reading: ] 13 September, 2004 Right-wing talk show host Sharon Hughes explains what's really wrong with environmentalists and Al and Tipper Gore: Pagans, all of 'em!... [ Continue reading: ] 13 September, 2004 Tens of thousands of right-wing Israelis rallied in Jerusalem on Sunday, protesting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plans to withdraw Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. The protest was one of many recent mass actions, which Sharon has characterized as "incitement... [ Continue reading: ]  What and Why People Believe Diane Winston: How does the paper of record report on religion? If the September 11, 2004 story on Montpelier, Vermont's new rabbi is any indication, not very thoroughly. [ Continue reading: ]  10 September, 2004 Pew's latest study finds that "Americans in most religious categories want laws to define marriage as between a man and a woman," though Jews, "'modernist'" Catholics, non-Christians and respondents with no religious affiliation all gave majority backing to same-sex marriage.... [ Continue reading: ] 10 September, 2004 In a campaign speech to the predominantly black National Baptist Convention in New Orleans, John Kerry quoted verse against President Bush, the AP reports. "Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing," Kerry said, and argued that... [ Continue reading: ]  9 September, 2004 A car bomb detonated outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta killed nine and wounded 173 just before Indonesia's presidential election and two days before the anniversary of 9/11. Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian terror group linked to al-Qaida, reportedly claimed... [ Continue reading: ] 9 September, 2004 "'It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.'" Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of satellite television station Al Arabiya, adds to the tone... [ Continue reading: ] 9 September, 2004 Greg Thompson, the superintendent of the Humansville, Missouri school system, was made to leave his post this week after a protracted controversy and federal lawsuit over Thompson's display of a Ten Commandments plaque on a school wall. The unrepentant Thompson... [ Continue reading: ] 9 September, 2004 The Los Angeles County seal has been altered to remove a contested gold cross as well as the Native American goddess Pomona. Immediate protests greeted the seal's debut, with the usual suspects promising a fight to restore the cross. But... [ Continue reading: ] 9 September, 2004 The Pimping of God: Jay Michaelson writes part five of Jewsweek's "Jewish critique of Bushism," arguing that "gay marriage has almost nothing to do with the presidency." Previous critiques asked: "Why should we live in a country ruled by a... [ Continue reading: ] 9 September, 2004 "One big difference in fertility rates remains: Conservative, religiously minded Americans are putting far more of their genes into the future than their liberal, secular counterparts."... [ Continue reading: ] 9 September, 2004 Alan Keyes is criticized by clergy and local Illinois politicians for claiming that Jesus would not vote for Democrat Barack Obama. "'I will leave Mr. Keyes to the theological speculations,'" said Obama. "'I'm not running to be the minister of... [ Continue reading: ]  8 September, 2004 "If Kerry Wins...": Dick Cheney opts for equal opportunity voter intimidation.... [ Continue reading: ] 8 September, 2004 "'Thank you, Lord, for loving journalism'": Columbia Journalism Review's Gal Beckerman writes a fine and nuanced report on the World Journalism Institute, a J-school for young evangelicals, which gained notoriety for a loose connection to the Jack Kelley scandal. While... [ Continue reading: ] 8 September, 2004 Ugandan Archbishop and Primate, The Most Rev. Henry Orombi, is to consecrate native Brit. Rev. Sandy Millar as a Ugandan Bishop in Mission. Millar's mission destination: England, where he will spread the Good News to lax U.K. Christians, and appease... [ Continue reading: ] 8 September, 2004 On September 13th in Washington DC, the Pluralism Project at Harvard University will host a forum, "Religion and Politics 2004: Women's Votes, Women's Voices," to explore the role of religious women in outreach, political advocacy, and voter registration. Read more.... [ Continue reading: ] 8 September, 2004 Unfortunate metaphors in The Boston Globe: DSL Republicans and dial-up Democrats, and something about a hot line to God...... [ Continue reading: ]  What God Gap? -- Pt. 6 Jeff Sharlet: The police didn’t know what do -- best-laid plans had not included giant fire-breathing Trojan salamanders. In minutes the fire leapt up and out of the dragon’s skull, then consumed it entirely, a bonfire thirty feet tall in the middle of “Fashion Avenue”... [ Continue reading: ] What God Gap? -- Pt. 5 Jason Boog: “I saw all these nuns, Baptist ministers, parents and children keep going, even though they knew the risks were higher,” the marcher told me after his friends were arrested. So he kept going, toward his own private showdown... [ Continue reading: ] What God Gap? -- Pt. 4 Kathryn Joyce: “Why can’t you be more like them?” The ABC cameraman demanded, gesturing to the drumming Krishnas on the curb. “They’re quiet. They’re behaved.” [ Continue reading: ] Friendly Fire? The Marine William Hunt, referred me to CNN.com’s casualty count for March 23, 2003. It lists 19 Marines killed in or near Nasiriyah on that day, including 15 from the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment. William Hunt gave interviews to... [ Continue reading: ] What God Gap? -- Pt. 3 Jesse Sunenblick: The crowd was chanting, “No More Bush.” Roy sort of whispered it. "Wow!" he said a couple of blocks later, "It's Madison Square Garden!" Later, when we passed Macy's, a store he'd heard of but never seen, he smiled gigantically as we walked down one of what he called the "fantastic streets." [ Continue reading: ] 7 September, 2004 "It says something about a chasm in American culture that two groups that deride each other's core beliefs use the same text to promote their own views." Jeffrey Weiss of The Dallas Morning News takes a tour of Hollywood Hellhouse,... [ Continue reading: ] 7 September, 2004 According to Sojourners, more than 59,000 people pledged support for an advertisement published in The New York Times during the Republican National Convention. The advertisement began, "'God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat,'" and quoted partisan, pro-Bush comments from... [ Continue reading: ] 7 September, 2004 Boy, does that David Brooks know moral clarity. And the Islamic fringe. While namby-pamby liberals mess about looking for root causes, Brooks has already got terrorism figured out: they're all psychopaths. "It's about the sheer pleasure of killing and dying.... [ Continue reading: ] 7 September, 2004 Demographers have announced that Zoroastrians, who mainly live in India and Iran, may face extinction due to falling birth rates and reluctance to accept converts. Jehangir Pocha of The Boston Globe reports that the threat has sparked heated debates on... [ Continue reading: ]  What God Gap? -- Pt. 2 Scott M. Korb: The streets were filled with us gnostics; while I stood in front of Madison Square Garden a motherly police captain told me we must have been some 400,000 strong, all of us skipping church... [ Continue reading: ] What God Gap? -- Pt. 1 Jeff Sharlet: Bill McDonald doesn’t claim to know what Jesus would do, but he knows what Jesus wants Bill McDonald to do -- march against the Bush administration. McDonald has accepted his assignment and has driven from Missouri with a fellow Christian to join a protest on the second day of the RNC. But he’s not budging on his vote: It’ll be cast for George W. It’s kind of complicated, the mystery of What God Wants, but there it is. [ Continue reading: ] What God Gap? Crossing Lines in the Culture War: 
The Revealer gets religion outside the Garden at the Republican National Convention.
[ Continue reading: ] 6 September, 2004 A group of Iraqi militants has asked the influential Sunni organization, the Association of Muslim Scholars, to issue a fatwa religious edict on whether or not Islam allows kidnapping of foreign workers in Iraq, the AP reports. A spokesman for... [ Continue reading: ] 6 September, 2004 "'I think it is probably the suffering of children that most deeply challenges anybody's personal faith. When you see the depth of energy that people can put into such evil, then of course, yes, there is a flicker, there is... [ Continue reading: ] 6 September, 2004 Japanese feminists are dismayed by a recent United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization declaration which recognized Mt. Omine, site of a male-only Shugendo pilgrimage, as a World Heritage landmark. For 1,300 years, only men have been allowed to climb... [ Continue reading: ]  5 September, 2004 "Evangelical Christianity's dance with secular culture has always been a complicated one. Whereas Biola once trained students to use modernism's devices, like the scientific method and rational argument, to undercut modernism, today, in a more postmodern era, it educates its... [ Continue reading: ] 5 September, 2004 The Conventional God: The Raving Atheist read through all of the presidential campaign convention addresses from 1960 through last Thursday's, looking for God-talk, and didn't find much. "As turns out, God is not really all that popular a guest at... [ Continue reading: ] 5 September, 2004 The Turkish government has proposed a bill, due to be submitted to parliament next month, that would make adultery a crime. Though women's rights organizations in the country are fighting the bill, both the majority government party and the main... [ Continue reading: ]  3 September, 2004 Got a privilege to be hostile, a Revealer favorite, points us to this overlooked AlterNet story: Swiss citizen Tariq Ramadan, one of the world's most important Muslim scholars, was invited to teach at the University of Notre Dame but the... [ Continue reading: ] 3 September, 2004 Brigham Young or Notre Dame? Heavenly mandates begin at home, folks.... [ Continue reading: ] 3 September, 2004 Steve Gushee: "A benign role for religion in politics is no longer possible despite the naive efforts of an interfaith group. Tough, honest debate of religion's place in public policy is past due....Still, the Interfaith Alliance of 150,000 members from... [ Continue reading: ] 3 September, 2004 Seventeen magazine editor-in-chief Atoosa Rubenstein has added a faith section to the girls' publication, which claims to appeal to all faiths, printing Bible verses, quoting Muhammad, the pope and the Dalai Lama. Rubenstein told the AP that reader response has... [ Continue reading: ] 3 September, 2004 "They don't seem to have any real agenda except to undermine the separation of church and state." Composer Philip Glass, speaking yesterday at a counter-convention screening of The Fog of War.... [ Continue reading: ] 3 September, 2004 France's ban on religious symbols, including head scarves, took effect peacefully yesterday as the country awaits word on two journalists being held by Iraqi militants opposed to the ban. Elaine Sciolino of The New York Times reports.... [ Continue reading: ] 3 September, 2004 Tomorrow's missionaries: Children at a Christian summer camp in Virginia are trained to circumvent the entry regulations of countries hostile to mission work by playing a camp game in which they are admitted to an auditorium with the password "Soccer"... [ Continue reading: ]  2 September, 2004 From the Kerry war room, on the uses and abuses of scriptural metaphor.... [ Continue reading: ] 2 September, 2004 Melanie Hunter of CNSNews reports the story of a Reuters editor, Todd Eastham, who sent a critical email response to a press release issued by the National Right to Life Committee. The anti-abortion group questioned the editor's "journalistic integrity," and... [ Continue reading: ] 2 September, 2004 Yesterday's NYTimes reported on a closed rally held by the Bush campaign at the Waldorf-Astoria for Christian conservative delegates, at which Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas declared "culture war." But, apparently, it's also a stealth war; the Bush campaign, eager... [ Continue reading: ] 2 September, 2004 Chechnya's top pro-Russian Muslim cleric condemned the militants who have seized a school in North Ossetia, a Russian region bordering Chechnya. "'The terrorist criminals who have seized the school and children have once again shown their savage face,'" Akhmed-Haji Shamayev,... [ Continue reading: ] 2 September, 2004 The pixelated Dorian Gray: The New York Times's Stephen Totilo reports on video game designer Peter Molyneux's new creation, Fable, a role-playing game in which the player guides a boy as he becomes a hero. What hero he becomes though,... [ Continue reading: ] 2 September, 2004 "'My desire to be at the RNC was this goal that I have to support the candidate that I believe has the most faith,'" actor and recently born-again Christian Stephen Baldwin told an interviewer on Tuesday. "'I think it's kind... [ Continue reading: ] 2 September, 2004 Several Jewish groups are offended by the podium and adjacent gavel stand being used at the Republican convention because they bear images of crosses, reports Reuters. "'This wooden cross must be at least three feet (one meter) tall, and it... [ Continue reading: ] 2 September, 2004 Jeff Sharlet: I was in Herald Square in Manhattan when Sen. Zell Miller gave his cross-dressing convention speech, and the word on the street -- or, at least, over the cell phones of friends calling in for reports -- was... [ Continue reading: ]  1 September, 2004 We here at The Revealer are such malcontents. Take the RNC. We're not happy with the way the press is (not) covering religion at the convention from the inside, and we're not happy with the way the press is covering... [ Continue reading: ] Boston-Area Terrorist Can't Get Break Brad Karger, a 29-year old pipe bomber from Watertown, Massachusetts, failed to gain significant national attention for his second -- and this time successful -- attempt to bomb a Boston-area laboratory specializing in stem-cell research. Reuters reports that Karger, who had tried to blow up the same Amaranth Bio laboratory last year, was arrested and is awaiting trial for charges of "having placed an explosive device and burning a building." Some observers speculate that Karger must be feeling unfairly "upstaged" or "passed over," since all the media's "terrorist" coverage is focusing on the nuns, grandparents and other crazed anarchists gathered this week in New York. [ Continue reading: ] 1 September, 2004 “I am enraged that Bush has used the Bible for personal gain,” a "daily Bible reader" tells Alternet, which also reports on some inadvertently "fair and balanced" police, who performed flying tackles to prevent protestors from getting near the Hardball... [ Continue reading: ] 1 September, 2004 Will evangelical RNC delegates take to the streets? "We didn't realize [convention planners] were going to eliminate and censor everything about God," Rod McDougal, head of the Pastoral Congressional Prayer Conference, complains to The Boston Globe.... [ Continue reading: ] 1 September, 2004 An unusual protest at the RNC later today will target not just FOX news, but all mainstream media outlets. Backed by FAIR and other media criticism outfits, it's mostly a leftist affair; but The Revealer suspects that the inadequacy of... [ Continue reading: ] |