Reading Widely: Our Recent Favorites
Some of the best religion and media reads from around the webs this week. Continue Reading →
Category: Daily
Religion & Media Current Events
Daily Links: Politic Poles Edition
Schiavo, Beinart, Stem Cells, NOM, and CSW! Continue Reading →
U.S. Religion by Number
Ashley Baxstrom: Where would we be without the Huffington Post? NOT in the know about the most and least religious states in America, that’s where.
[Full reveal: HuffPo got it from Gallup. But who reads Gallup? Thanks, HuffPo!]
Here’s the breakdown: Mississippi is the most religious, New Hampshire and Vermont tie for least. Eight of the 10 most-religious are in the South, none are in the mid-Atlantic/New England or West Coast regions; but six of the least-religious are in New England, four in the West.
And before you ask –yes, there is an accompanying slideshow of scenic imagery from each state. Continue Reading →
Put a Gun to their Head
Maybe use of fear and violence isn’t the best way to teach about fear and violence.
Ashley Baxstrom: This headline speaks for itself: “Pennsylvania Church Kidnaps Teens, Holds Them At Gunpoint, For ‘Learning Exercise.’”
It’s pretty much about exactly what you think it is. Officials at the Glad Tidings Assembly of God in Middleton, Pennsylvania, arranged for members of the church youth group to be actually, physically kidnapped from a meeting and transported to Pastor John Lanza’s house.
The 14-year-old girl interviewed by reporters said that two men armed with guns entered the room, put pillowcases over students’ heads, and pushed them into a van. Continue Reading →
Ads for Secular (Liberal) Catholics
Amy Levin: The New York Times committed a liberal faux pas last month. As if they’d forgotten just how controversial ads can be, they accepted $39,000 from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) to run a full-page. . .well I’ll just say it, “anti-Catholic” advertisement. The ad features a political cartoon–with a grumpily outraged male bishop and a frustrated cosmopolitan, white, middle-aged female sandwiching a birth control pill–that reads, “All the outrage over something like this is a bit hard to swallow.” Next to the cartoon in giant bold letters the ad visually screams “Open letter to ‘liberal’ and ‘nominal’ Catholics. It’s your moment of truth.” Feast your eyes down the page and you’ll find any number of quintessential reasons to leave the Catholic church, most prominently, women’s reproductive rights. Here’s a fun clip:
Why put up with an institution that won’t put up with women priests, which excludes half of humanity?
Easter Riot
Ashley Baxstrom: It’s a curious culture we live in when a children’s event has to be cancelled because people are acting belligerently.
It’s troubling even – or maybe especially – when it’s a religious children’s event. A religious children’s event that’s supposed to be a joyous celebration. A religious children’s event that’s supposed to be a joyous celebration about a bunny (or, you know, Jesus).
The Gender & Sexual Politics of End of Life Care, April 10
I’ll be on a panel with the amazing Susan Gerbino, Amber Hollibaugh, Ai-Jen Poo and Robert Campbell on April 10. Come say hi.
The Gender and Sexual Politics of End of Life Care
April 10, Tuesday
6 to 8 pm
Performance Studies Studio
21 Broadway, 6th Floor, Room 612 Continue Reading →
Anti-Catholic Bias
Florida Times-Union writer Phillip Milano spoke with me–and Philip Jenkins–about “anti-Catholic” bias in the media. Continue Reading →
Spring has sprung!
Ashley Baxstrom: Today we celebrate the vernal equinox, herald of spring, which reportedly arrived at 1:14 am. Equinoxes occur twice a year, marking when the periods of night and day are just-about-equal. Here in the northern hemisphere, we appreciate that we’ll be receiving increasingly more warmth and light as the sun passes over the equator. Continue Reading →
Daily Links: Briefly
Don’t miss in media res‘ fantastic series of events, “Religious Representations on Television,” from today through Friday. See here for details.
Kathryn Joyce, The Revealer‘s first managing editor, interviews David Clohessy, national director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) on the Catholic Church’s new tactic for silencing the group in court.
Rick Santorum pals around with a preacher who thinks non-Christians should get out of the U.S.
Scott Korb, our former books editor, writes at The Chronicle of Higher Education about the first Muslim liberal-arts institution in the U.S., Zaytuna College:
Not a Muslim myself, nor a believer in any appreciable way, I’ve spent much of the last 18 months with these scholars and their students: at a venerable mosque in Brooklyn and a storefront mosque in Oakland; at fund raisers in Washington, D.C.; New Brunswick, N.J.; New York City, and throughout the Bay Area; in online forums and open houses; in classrooms and in the basement of a Roman Catholic church; and in Muslim community centers located in low-rent business parks. When I asked Sheik Hamza recently whether he was surprised to see his name in the [NYPD surveillance] report, he said no. Although he added, “A lot of these young Muslims born here are not always aware of the history of real persecution of other communities. They would do well reading more history.”