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   Limbo Babies The second-hottest story to come out of the Vatican this week concerns the eternal souls of babies -- unchristened and still full of original sin -- righteous pre-Christians, and the classical sages. The Guardian reports that 30 leading Catholic theologians... [ Continue reading: ] Saddamites? Rob Kall, of OpEdNews, sees coded talk in President Bush's identification of the enemy, in this morning's address, as "rejectionists, Saddamists and terrorists." It's not such a long leap, notes Kall, from Saddamist to sodomist...... [ Continue reading: ] The First Amendment Center and Its Influence Alan Elsner of the San Diego Union-Tribune misses at least one culture-warring beat in his report on The Bible and Its Influence: a new, 387-page glossy edition of the King James Old and New Testaments that aims to reestablish the... [ Continue reading: ] Culture Without the Culture Wars Erica Ogg: In his "800 Words" column in The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Dan Neil, on location in Patagonia, tosses off a comparison of the evolution debate in the United States and the lack of one in Puerto Natales, Chile,... [ Continue reading: ]  Unraveling the Israel Alliance "Jews in America aren't endangered, but the power of the religious right has clearly reached a point where a great many feel exceedingly nervous. The fear is not of pogroms or outright discrimination; rather, it's of the disappearance of the... [ Continue reading: ] USAID, Christ and Liberty William Fisher, who has worked on economic programs in developing nations for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), wonders at the message being sent by one of President Bush's latest appointments, dean of academic... [ Continue reading: ] Laïcité Cidney Dutton: Laïcité, the French term for the separation of church and state, is a relatively new concept for a country whose history is far longer than America's. Although passed only a century ago, the law of secularism was incorporated into the First Article of the Constitution of the French Fifth Republic. Some might say that France has taken this concept too far... [ Continue reading: ] ID Roundup Intelligent Design advocates' tactic of painting their opponents' pro-evolution arguments as another belief-set or religion -- a tactic well-honed by conservative pundits over the past year -- graduates from PR-stunt to litigation claim this week, as a California couple sues... [ Continue reading: ]  Demystify National Catholic Reporter journalist John Allen talks with Fresh Air's Terry Gross about his new book, Opus Dei: An Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church, right now. Listen.... [ Continue reading: ] Changeallujah: The Reluctant Religion of Reverend Billy Brad Tytel: Whether this is theater or religion remains an open question. I have come to see a man expound a moral truth to a crowd of believers while his choir sings hymns from the dais behind him -- in a church no less. So how is that different from any religion? If the preacher is a fake, but he preaches his sermon sincerely to a crowd of authentic believers, is it an act or is it conviction? [ Continue reading: ] Greek Life Zain Shauk: We salute Jenny Jarvie of The Los Angeles Times, who dug up a story about the first Muslim sorority and delivered a great representation of the way young Muslim women are struggling to balance their Islamic beliefs with... [ Continue reading: ] It's All Right Ma, They're Only Mormons A story that has been brewing in the pages of Rocky Mountain papers for weeks hits The Washington Times today, with Stephen Dinan's report on a religious exemption provision to anti-immigration laws proposed by Utah Republican Senator Robert F. Bennett,... [ Continue reading: ]  All That I Have Is Yours Scott Korb: It was a cool, overcast Wednesday in the spring. I had left work by midafternoon and stood under the awning at my office with the smokers, out of the drizzling rain, to confirm my appointment over the phone. I dropped the design off yesterday, I explained. It had taken me months to decide how the letters would connect and overlap...I’d donated blood the day before, in preparation, knowing I would not be able to give blood for a year after this (according to the rules of blood donation), and hoping that one session with one long needle could prepare me for the thousands of buzzing pricks I was about to face in taking this mark of my inheritance... [ Continue reading: ] Five Questions Zain Shauk: In a recent Los Angeles Times Op-Ed, radio host Dennis Prager posed five questions that he said non-Muslims would like to have answered. They included questions about why so many atrocities are committed in the name of Islam... [ Continue reading: ] Symbolic Gestures for China Jason Carter: Amid the tensions of Bush’s visit to the world’s fastest growing economy, the president emphasized China’s repression of religious and social freedoms by attending "one of the few state-approved and state-monitored congregations in the country," The New York... [ Continue reading: ]  The War on Christmas Is Always Now The ACLU didn't steal Christmas, but don't think that's about to stop Jerry Falwell in his remarkably unoriginal new drive, "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign," which will enlist 8,000 members of the Christian Educators Association International to monitor public schools... [ Continue reading: ] The Universe is Expanding! "It’s been more than 200 years since the founders established the separation of church and state. The assault on that principle now under way promises to alter not only our form of government but our concept of religion as well."... [ Continue reading: ] The Devil Made Them Do It? Elizabeth Rich: The day before Halloween 2005, The L.A. Times Magazine reported the first recantation in the infamous satanic ritual abuse case that engulfed California’s McMartin Preschool in the 1980’s. More than two decades after Judy Johnson reported to police that teacher Ray Buckey sexually molested her son, another former McMartin preschooler, Kyle Sapp, now Kyle Zirpolo, admitted he was one child who lied to investigators. [ Continue reading: ]  Assimilation Nation "'What's happening now in the Islamic community is very similar to what was happening in the 1920s and '30s...with the Jewish community.'" No, not persecution. Cultural assimilation, via the Boy Scouts of America, the requirements of which -- an adherence... [ Continue reading: ] Return to Psychedelics "Over the past decade, I have engaged in an intellectual and spiritual odyssey that began when I was in my late twenties, in the depths of an existential crisis...I was brought up as an atheist in a countercultural milieu --... [ Continue reading: ] Li'l Islam: Role-Play Religion Hally Hall-I Chu: Many schools have role-playing exercises designed to help students better understand the subjects they portray. But what happens when role-playing steps into religious territory? [ Continue reading: ] Under Attack According to a survey commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League, "American Attitudes Toward Religion in the Public Square," nearly two-thirds of American citizens believe that religion is under siege, presumably threatened by the remaining third of citizens who, though vastly outnumbered,... [ Continue reading: ] Calvaryism The New York Times' Carolyn Marshall does an admirable job of refereeing in her latest story, about a pending lawsuit between parents from the Calvary Chapel Christian School, in Murrieta, California, and the University of California, over a set of... [ Continue reading: ]  Muzzle Men A petition organized by Jay Sekulow, of the conservative action group American Center for Law and Justice, which is signed by more than 80,000 people and supported by dozens of congressmen, aims to get President Bush to issue an executive... [ Continue reading: ] This Week in Gay Church Schisms A day after an open letter to Archbishop Rowan Williams of the Church of England was posted on the website of the "Global South Primates" under the names of 17 conservative Anglican bishops, criticizing him and challenging his authority over... [ Continue reading: ] Pagan Filters The Wildhunt Blog reads between the lines of this Herald Tribune story describing a forum on religion in public schools held in Sarasota, Florida. Superintendent Gary Norris was a panelist at the event, hosted by Americans United for Separation of... [ Continue reading: ]  Universism In a Nutshell Stephanie Simon of The Los Angeles Times profiles the non-prophet founder of a new, doubt-filled religion -- Universism -- Ford Vox (who also runs the online forum for the 8,000-member faith, Universist Forum: History in the Making). In a piece... [ Continue reading: ] The Unusual Plan B A USA Today editorial makes the case that religion is the prime mover at the Food and Drug Administration, and is shocked (shocked...) to think of one group imposing its values upon another in "a nation founded on religious freedom... [ Continue reading: ] Say Little Prayers News of the Silly: England's General Register Office has revised rules that banned all religious references from civil marriage ceremonies to now allow the incidentally religious references to God, prayer, or grace that tend to appear in popular wedding songs... [ Continue reading: ] God Still Doesn't Like Commies In the breath before the rush to denounce former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, for his courtroom statements that a) God will forgive him for his murderous excesses; and b) that God moved his hand while he merely suffers for deeds... [ Continue reading: ]  SoMA Family Values The true confessions of a Catholic priest's Madonna/Whore "backstreet girl"; the memory of religious exclusion from a gay married couple; a review of Revealer contributor Peter Manseau's new book, Vows; and pioneering Catholic theologian Uta Ranke-Heinemann's dynamic charges against the... [ Continue reading: ] Narnia Chronicles Erica Ogg: Someone finally said it. A journalist has recognized the inherently complementary natures of Hollywood and C.S. Lewis. [ Continue reading: ] It's a Celebration "Finally, a day in which we can come together and celebrate God's eternal moral law." Mark your calendars for February 5, 2006 (or February 4th, for those Saturday-Sabbath observers), when one of this year's most tedious religio-political controversies could be... [ Continue reading: ] "Thank you, Father" A week after the State Department's annual listing of countries "blacklisted" for their lack of religious freedom, comes horrible new testimony and details from North Korean refugees, charging incidents, in 2003 and before, of violent persecution of North Korean Christians... [ Continue reading: ]  We're All Doomed J.J. Helland: As I was watching the recent made-for-TV-movie, Category 7: The End of The World, a film about a devastating storm that threatens to destroy the planet, I thought of Pat Robertson. [ Continue reading: ] A Spirituality of One's Own American Jesus author Stephen Prothero considers the growing SBNR ("spiritual but not religious") movement, as the crowd of independent minds gains a chronicler in Leigh Eric Schmidt, author of the recent history of spirituality, Restless Souls. While Schmidt counters the... [ Continue reading: ] Kansas: The Truth Is Out There Nearly ten months after the Kansas State Board of Education proposed altering the definition of "science" for statewide standards, removing the phrase, "Science is the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us,"... [ Continue reading: ]  Australian Design All this past year, Australian culture wars have been following the U.S. playbook faithfully, erupting over gay marriage, public religiosity, and prison salvations just as, or just after, did America. Intelligent Design is apparently no different, and Australia's Campus Crusade... [ Continue reading: ] Newdow Files Again Michael Newdow files again, this time taking aim at the "In God We Trust" motto on U.S. currency. Newdow announced on Sunday his plans to file a federal lawsuit asking for the removal of the motto on the grounds that... [ Continue reading: ] Know Your Audience (If Not the Story) In the wake of the U.S. State Department's report on worldwide religious freedom, which once again condemned Saudi Arabia as a severe violator of religious liberty that only allowed citizens to follow the state-sanctioned version of Sunni Islam, comes the... [ Continue reading: ] All, All, All "Jesus did not say, 'If I be lifted up I will draw some.' Jesus said, 'If I be lifted up I will draw all, all, all, all, all.'" Desmond Tutu, speaking in California, called upon the Anglican Church to embrace... [ Continue reading: ]  Catholic Gays and the Coming Era of the Spirit "'As I see it, the whole trajectory of the church is toward the era of the Spirit, when each will know the truth in his heart and there will be no need for extrinsic authority...By being rejected by church leadership,... [ Continue reading: ] Pat Will Survive Pat Robertson warns Dover voters not to be surprised -- nor to ask for divine help -- if God comes a'smiting after they booted eight pro-Intelligent Design school board members from office in last week's election. In the event of... [ Continue reading: ]  The Atheist-Pagan-Nazi-Wahhabi Alliance v. Motherland After a group of Russian atheists called for the Constitutional Court to remove a reference to God from the national anthem, the Union of Orthodox Citizens charged that such a deletion would lead to rioting and civil unrest in Russia... [ Continue reading: ] And Tennessee Associations Embarrass Dover It was the bad p.r. that did it for voters in Dover, Pennsylvania, who this week voted to oust all eight school board members who were up for re-election after they had supported the teaching of Intelligent Design in public... [ Continue reading: ] White Knights Embarass Texas A handful of representatives of the "White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan" and the World Church of the Creator rallied in Austin this past weekend in support of Proposition 2, a ballot initiative altering the Texas Constitution to ban... [ Continue reading: ]  U.S. "particularly unconcerned" with Uzbekistan Jason Carter: Declining a recommendation by the Commission on International Religious Freedom, the State Department did not include Uzbekistan on its annual list of countries guilty of severe religious oppression. A Reuters article in The New York Times outlined... [ Continue reading: ]  "Paradise Now" and Power of Transformation Meera Subramanian: In Palestine, the enemy is many things. The enemy takes your land and holds you captive. The enemy launches bombs that leave the whitened stones of the West Bank in a mass of rubble that merges with the dust of the land. The enemy walks along the beachside boardwalk unaware of your existence. But the enemy in a refugee camp is also tedium... [ Continue reading: ]  Everything But the Girl Marissa Kantor: On November 8th, in one of the fiercest faith-based rivalries sparked in California in decades, voters over the age of 18 will decide whether or not girls under the age of 18 have to tell their parents before they can get an abortion. In a roundabout way, of course. Proposition 73, also known as the "tell a parent" initiative, is a proposed constitutional amendment that would require doctors to notify parents at least 48 hours before carrying out an abortion on a minor, leaving the abortion seeker herself a passive observer... [ Continue reading: ] Evergreen Like a Pine-Tree Air Freshener For how long of a period can one group -- say environmentalists -- be described as in the process of "gaining a new ally" -- call 'em evangelicals? If it was a small-town local rag looking for filler stories, the... [ Continue reading: ] Robinson v. Ratzinger Gene Robinson, the openly-gay Episcopal bishop whose 2003 ordination was one provocation for the current church divide that threatens to split the Anglican Communion, has called for his Church to confront the Roman Catholic Church over its attitudes towards homosexuals... [ Continue reading: ] Partisan Peace Last fall, when church-state watchdog groups warned politically-active churches that overt campaigning for one candidate or another might cost them their tax-exempt status, conservative talking heads such as Jay Sekulow cried persecution at the hands of "left-wing thugs" selectively targeting... [ Continue reading: ]  J. Edgar Hoover's Dream There's no mention of religion in Barton Gellman's brilliant, terrifying Washington Post report, "The FBI's Secret Scrutiny," but there doesn't need to be... [ Continue reading: ]  Liberal Media More of that ol' time liberal media: "America's freedoms were created by founders who believed in the sanctity of human life but also that man was a fallen creature," writes education reporter Ann Work, of the Wichita Falls (Tx) Times... [ Continue reading: ] Mao’s Latest Bow Brad Tytel: It is old hat to offer up communism as a "religion" in its own right. But there are few places left in the world, and little media coverage of them, that afford us a look at why people choose this ideology, as opposed to merely being born into it. Maoism in Nepal is a movement rather than a state, and its followers' beliefs fall somewhere between politics and religious ecstasy. [ Continue reading: ] Religion and Exclusion in Paris "When the sun sets, the violence begins. Burning cars, balaclava-clad youth battling police (sometimes with real bullets), and an increasing sense of hopelessness cover neighborhoods long afflicted with high unemployment. It could be the West Bank, but this time the... [ Continue reading: ] Mamas, Don't Let Your Sons Grow Up to Be Evil Biblical Kings After receiving numerous inquiries from Jewish parents fearful of misnaming their children, a group of Israeli rabbis has compiled a list of bad names that shouldn't be given to Jewish children, including the first names of both the prime minister,... [ Continue reading: ]  Subjective Fluff and the BBC When the God-Beat-beat goes parliamentary, do the same standards of criticism apply? Do the same subjective questions religion-beat critics use to evaluate religion coverage -- questions about the selection or reporting of religion stories, about the reporter's tone and level... [ Continue reading: ] Malevolent Design J. M. Tyree: Why not put forward a raft of other contenders -- Kali, Allah, Krishna, Jah, The Force, Cthulhu -- for the starring role of Intelligent Designer? Intelligent Design isn't just bad science, it's bad religion. [ Continue reading: ]  An Ordinary, Reasonable Person An excerpt from Vows: The Story of A Priest, a Nun, and Their Son, a new book by Revealer contributor Peter Manseau.Vows is the best kind of religion journalism, drawing on multiple genres -- memoir, obviously, but also investigative reporting, history, theology, and the drama of a thriller. [ Continue reading: ]  Parks and the Movement Church Raegan Johnson: In the wake of Rosa Park’s death, no one is asking or looking to see where the African American churches are now in concerns of progressive political movements. [ Continue reading: ] Post-Pumpkin Rebellion Roundup Marissa Kantor: At a moment where every lunch bag left under a chair is deemed a potential bomb, it should come as no surprise that Halloween, a holiday of costumes and candy, has become tainted and suspect as well. Take Venezuela, for example, where Reuters reported that Caracas has found a new enemy: "Halloween-style pumpkins carrying messages of rebellion against President Hugo Chavez." This so-called "pumpkin alert" was not the first Halloween-related threat... [ Continue reading: ] |