Tag: catholics

In the News: It’s grim, but at least there’s a GIF

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A round-up of recent religion news. Continue Reading →

In the News: Passover, Prison, Pop Music , and more!

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A round-up of recent religion and media stories in the news. Continue Reading →

Hello Daily Links

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Whattayaknow?! Mormons handle money differently than the rest of us. Same with the Mennonites, and the Jews.

Is the Fall true or just factual?  Or both?  And what does that mean for Catholicism? Or, as the always witty @danielsilliman asked via twitter, in response to this, aliens?

Charisma confuses mission work in North Korea with human rights work.  Yes, freedom of conscience should be a human right, but just dropping Christian flyers into North Korea isn’t really human rights work, folks.

Country music star Collin Raye is the new national spokesperson for the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network.

Birth panels:  Conservative Catholic groups dissatisfied with the rigor of the conscience clauses in the Obama Administration’s health care bill are organizing to support Jeff Fortenberry’s “Respect for Rights of Conscience Act.”  It would “permit a health plan to decline coverage of specific items and services that are contrary to the religious beliefs of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan.”  It would expand denominational health care nationally, prohibiting patients from receiving the full range of medically sound treatments (or meaningful referrals, or informed consent) at denominational hospitals.  Four of the top 10 HMOs in the US, by the way, are Catholic.

Celebrate Yom Kippur with all the dirty hippies in Zuccotti Park tomorrow night.

Everybody’s hating on Jim Wallis and Evangelicals.  Here’s why.  (They’ve apparently forgotten what persecution does for him!)

Some good #OWS Links:  Metamovement.  Blame yourself. Is America. Everything. Continue Reading →

Atheism vs Religion: Take 253: Matthew Chapman's The Ledge

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by S. Brent Plate

Before you’ve even heard of this film, Bill Donohue has, once again, given it a ratings boost by rebuffing it on the Catholic League website. In between press releases on “Bishop Blasted over Gay Marriage” and “New York Times is Gay Crazy,” is a little piece blasting Matthew Chapman’s film The Ledge:

People of faith, especially Catholics, are used to being trashed by Hollywood, but they are not accustomed to films that promote atheism. Yes, there was “The Golden Compass,” an atheism-for-kids effort which the Catholic League successfully boycotted (in fairness, it was the book upon which the movie was based that triggered our response, not the screen adaptation). “The Ledge” is different in that its backers are selling themselves as the real pioneers: they expect it to be a ground-breaker.

The allegorical Golden Compass (2007) was derided by the Catholic League and many evangelicals who claimed it to be a pro-atheist stealth campaign. This was just two years after the allegorical Chronicles of Narnia, which upset some secular-minded people for being too heavy-handed in the Christian sub themes. Before that was Gibson’s Passion, then Scorsese’s Last Temptation, and the see-sawing controversy continues. I doubt The Ledge will make as big a splash, not because it doesn’t raise important issues, but because it lacks the big budget funding that really stirs controversy. Continue Reading →

Atheism vs Religion: Take 253: Matthew Chapman’s The Ledge

Posted on by

by S. Brent Plate

Before you’ve even heard of this film, Bill Donohue has, once again, given it a ratings boost by rebuffing it on the Catholic League website. In between press releases on “Bishop Blasted over Gay Marriage” and “New York Times is Gay Crazy,” is a little piece blasting Matthew Chapman’s film The Ledge:

People of faith, especially Catholics, are used to being trashed by Hollywood, but they are not accustomed to films that promote atheism. Yes, there was “The Golden Compass,” an atheism-for-kids effort which the Catholic League successfully boycotted (in fairness, it was the book upon which the movie was based that triggered our response, not the screen adaptation). “The Ledge” is different in that its backers are selling themselves as the real pioneers: they expect it to be a ground-breaker.

The allegorical Golden Compass (2007) was derided by the Catholic League and many evangelicals who claimed it to be a pro-atheist stealth campaign. This was just two years after the allegorical Chronicles of Narnia, which upset some secular-minded people for being too heavy-handed in the Christian sub themes. Before that was Gibson’s Passion, then Scorsese’s Last Temptation, and the see-sawing controversy continues. I doubt The Ledge will make as big a splash, not because it doesn’t raise important issues, but because it lacks the big budget funding that really stirs controversy. Continue Reading →

Assessing the Culture Warriors

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From Tim Muldoon’s article at WaPo’s On Faith blog, “Faltering and Leading: The Conservative Moment,” in which Muldoon assesses David French’s fawning assessment of the state of the Conservative movement (only evangelicals need work harder!) and finds it almost very satisfactory:

If there is a hopeful note in this ancient and new story of the relationship between faith and culture, it is this: no longer is the story limited to a single narrative. There are three strands (Catholic, Evangelical, and Mormon) that French points to in his article, but there are surely others. Many contemporary Jews and Muslims, for example, are equally concerned that American laissez-faire attitudes toward sex, and therefore toward abortion, marriage, and many other social issues are toxic to a society. Further, the convergence of these narratives around social issues offers fruitful directions for interfaith conversation, when once upon a time those conversations foundered on the rocks of doctrinal disagreement.

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