Tag: becky garrison

Give Us This Day Our Daily Links

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Gingrich is in. How he’ll appeal to the social conservatives is anyone’s guess.  || As Speaker Boehner plans his commencement speech for Catholic University of America, dozens of prominent Catholics have written him a letter that calls his policies “anti-life.”  || Becky Garrison has pointed us to John Shore’s analysis of the Sojourner’s gay ad kerfuffle, “Mr. Wallis and His Big Gay Waffle.” || Today The Presbyterian Church (USA) joined the Episcopal Church (US), the United Church of Christ and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in permitting the ordination of gay ministers.  At least one Baptist thinks they’re all crazy.  ||  Speaking of Baptists…”But when it comes to disaster relief, the link between church and state has never been stronger than during the most recent storms in the South, say federal officials and the leaders of faith-based disaster relief work.” Continue Reading →

Give Us This Day Our Daily Links

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Should astrophysicist Martin Rees have accepted the Templeton Prize he was awarded last week?  ||  This is what blasphemy looks like:  A group of French Catholics has defaced Serrano’s Piss Christ.  ||  Nickelodeon premiered a new children’s TV show on Sunday, “Freedom to believe…or Not.”  ||  The death of God is so over:  Jon Meacham puts Rob Bell on the cover of Time and asks us, “Is Hell Dead?” (Read Revealer Becky Garrison’s take on the Bell & Piper show here. Watch Chris Matthews’ panel — with Andrew Sullivan, Norah O’Donnell, Joe Klein and Becky Quick — here.)  ||  “A professor of religious law at Benghazi’s Garyounis University, Osama el-Salladi, says that under the 41-year rule of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, religious institutions were as controlled as political life.”  ||  A truck carrying 3,888 bibles was stolen outside Moscow this holy week.  ||  Fraudulent churches, heal thyselves:  Senator Chuck Grassley’s three-year investigation of church financial fraud has produced a commission (from the likes of Oral Roberts University President Mark Rutland, Campus Crusade for Christ President Stephen Douglass and megachurch pastors Joel Hunter and Bishop Kenneth Ulmer) but no charges of misconduct.  ||  The presidential campaign to appear convincingly Christian is working.  ||  Mega Churches have turned away from the bible and it’s all Peter Drucker’s fault.  || Doomsday Capitalism! The 500-year cycle is coming to an end!  ||  “This budget deal is at least $1.1 billion sin against the poorest of this nation. And no one who voted for it deserves the appellation ‘pro-life.’” Continue Reading →

John Piper v. Rob Bell:Battle for the Soul of Evangelical Christianity?

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by Becky Garrison

Rob Bell, a bestselling Christian author and founder of Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids became a top trend on Twitter last week after Justin Taylor posted a blog article titled “Rob Bell: Universalist?”  Taylor, vice president at Crossways International, a Christian educational non-profit, based his commentary on select chapters of Bell’s forthcoming book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived that were sent to him and on a promotional video produced to accompany this book’s release on March 29th. Those who picked up on Taylors’ post included bestselling author and Reformed pastor John Piper, who tweeted a succinct “Farewell, Rob Bell.”

The bulk of those generating the ensuing online buzz appear to have reached their conclusions regarding Bell’s book not based on the book itself, which few have actually had the chance to read, but on a position they’ve already taken in the ongoing battles between reformed and progressive (aka emergent) evangelicals. Bell’s detractors claim that he’s abandoned “biblical Christianity” and the belief that only Christians can enter heaven. Instead, he’s charged with adopting universalism, a concept which states that everyone will eventually be saved.  In other words, critics claim, what’s at stake is nothing short of Bell’s soul and those of his followers and readers. Continue Reading →

God's Labor in Wisconsin

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Becky Garrison (who writes for The Revealer sometimes) looks at the outspokenness of a Wisconsin Catholic Bishop regarding the rights of workers there.   She writes at The Guardian:

While the US Catholic church traditionally sides with Republican interests in promoting a pro-life agenda, the archdiocese of Milwaukee threw its support behind the unions in the ongoing Wisconsin-based protests against the erosion of workers’ bargaining rights.

Continue Reading →

God’s Labor in Wisconsin

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Becky Garrison (who writes for The Revealer sometimes) looks at the outspokenness of a Wisconsin Catholic Bishop regarding the rights of workers there.   She writes at The Guardian:

While the US Catholic church traditionally sides with Republican interests in promoting a pro-life agenda, the archdiocese of Milwaukee threw its support behind the unions in the ongoing Wisconsin-based protests against the erosion of workers’ bargaining rights.

Continue Reading →

God’s Labor in Wisconsin

Posted on by

Becky Garrison (who writes for The Revealer sometimes) looks at the outspokenness of a Wisconsin Catholic Bishop regarding the rights of workers there.   She writes at The Guardian:

While the US Catholic church traditionally sides with Republican interests in promoting a pro-life agenda, the archdiocese of Milwaukee threw its support behind the unions in the ongoing Wisconsin-based protests against the erosion of workers’ bargaining rights.

Continue Reading →

Hate Groups: Notes from SPLC’s Web Conference

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Becky Garrison: Effective next year, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a non-profit civil rights organization, will add The Family Research Council (FRC)  and 12 other anti-gay organizations to the list of hate groups they monitor.  On December 7, 2010, SPLC President Richard Cohen and SPLC’s Intelligence Project Director Mark Potok held a half-hour web conference to discuss these recent additions.

Following are some of the highlights from this conversation: Continue Reading →

Hate Groups: Notes from SPLC’s Web Conference

Posted on by

Becky Garrison: Effective next year, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a non-profit civil rights organization, will add The Family Research Council (FRC)  and 12 other anti-gay organizations to the list of hate groups they monitor.  On December 7, 2010, SPLC President Richard Cohen and SPLC’s Intelligence Project Director Mark Potok held a half-hour web conference to discuss these recent additions.

Following are some of the highlights from this conversation: Continue Reading →

Hate Groups: Notes from SPLC's Web Conference

Posted on by

Becky Garrison: Effective next year, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a non-profit civil rights organization, will add The Family Research Council (FRC)  and 12 other anti-gay organizations to the list of hate groups they monitor.  On December 7, 2010, SPLC President Richard Cohen and SPLC’s Intelligence Project Director Mark Potok held a half-hour web conference to discuss these recent additions.

Following are some of the highlights from this conversation: Continue Reading →

Inflating or Deflating Beck?

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Becky Garrison: In her article for Washington Post’s On Faith blog about Glenn Beck and the Comedy Central rallies this weekend, Jennifer Butler neglects to mention that Faith in Public Life is the online host for Faithful America. As I noted in my post for The Revealer, Faithful America continue to protest Beck’s rantings in the hopes such advocacy efforts will result in strategically placed media and will increase both the nonprofit’s political profile and donor base. In my own post at On Faith, I reflect on how Beck relies on well-intentioned groups like Faithful America and Sojourners to launch campaigns against him because their anti-Beck advocacy efforts play into his persona as a persecuted American being hunted down by godless Nazis. Continue Reading →