Review: The Territories of Science and Religion by Peter Harrison
Cara Rock-Singer reviews The Territories of Science and Religion by Peter Harrison. Continue Reading →
Tag: culture wars
The Danger of Winning
By Ann Neumann Is a revisionist history of abortion rights being used–by journalists, supporters, and lawyers–to curtail Supreme Court rulings on other rights like same sex marriage. Is “fear of the backlash” just a stubborn frame? Continue Reading →
The Extraordinary, Amazing, Miraculous Story of Christian Hollywood
Amy Levin: It’s only the end of January and many of us are already in winter break withdrawal – missing those precious days when you can sit back, relax with your nieces and nephews and watch those fun, PG-rated, faithy, family films about saving cute animals and. . . yourself? Yes, the days when Disney got away with feeding kids spoonfuls of gendered and racially flavored sugar are perhaps behind us (no they’re not), but we’re certainly far from beyond consuming tales infused with religious ingredients, that is, Dolphin Tale (watch the trailer here, if it doesn’t make you tear up, I don’t know what will).
Dolphin Tale is the “amazing true story” of the friendship between a boy and a bottlenose dolphin named Winter, who he helps rescue when Winter is caught in a crab trap off the cost of Florida. Continue Reading →
As Goes Iowa:The Family Leader, Religious Politics and 2012
by Andy Kopsa
America’s culture wars are at full throttle: defunding Planned Parenthood, chipping away at a woman’s right to an abortion – and if possible taking away that right altogether, preventing or ending gay marriage (because it could lead to Sharia law), enacting Religious Freedom Restoration Acts to “restore religious liberty” that was never lost. State after state after state serves as a front on which the Christian Right and their willing Republican legislators wage these wars. Iowa is a perfect microcosm, an example of the powerful Christian Political Action Committees (PACs) leading the effort. Iowa’s powerful and successful The Family Leader is a model to which all others can be held.
The Iowa Family Policy Center (IFPC), which recently changed its name to The Family Leader*, is the most vocal and political anti-gay organization in Iowa. As a federally funded chapter of the Family Research Council (FRC), IFPC railed against gay marriage leading up to the 2009 Iowa Supreme Court decision granting marriage equality for same sex couples. They started the “LUV Iowa” (Let Us Vote) Campaign to bring a Proposition 8-like ballot initiative to the state. They sent lobbyists to the state capital and held ‘pro-family’ rallies. Continue Reading →
Small-r Rebellion
Gary Younge, a feature writer for the Guardian, has written that the Tea Party is “not a new phenomenon. It’s simply a new name for an old phenomenon – the American hard right.” A disparate, loose group of previously unnamed ideas and motivations, with a boat load of money and its own TV channel.
The relationship between these organisations [The Tea Party Express, FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, Tea Party Patriots] and the base of people who call themselves Tea Party supporters is episodic and erratic. They show up in different places where they sense an opportunity for a breakthrough, throw money at it, attract media attention for it, and then see what sticks.
Which is the point that Terry Mattingly (aka tmatt or editor) at Get Religion is hinting at in his recent post on a story at WaPo about Rick Santorum’s presidential bid water-testing. Continue Reading →
Ordained Into the Abstract: What does "Anglican" Mean?
In Christopher Armstrong’s brief history of U.S. fundamentalism, he cites that in the 1970s, “the movement began a tectonic shift from protecting theological truths in infra-denominational fights to guarding ‘Christian morality’ in a nation specially chosen by God.” As part of this shifting, terms like “evangelical” (Good News) and “Christian” (follower of Jesus Christ) were co-opted by these “gatekeepers,” and as such, these words lost their original meaning. Continue Reading →
Ordained Into the Abstract: What does “Anglican” Mean?
In Christopher Armstrong’s brief history of U.S. fundamentalism, he cites that in the 1970s, “the movement began a tectonic shift from protecting theological truths in infra-denominational fights to guarding ‘Christian morality’ in a nation specially chosen by God.” As part of this shifting, terms like “evangelical” (Good News) and “Christian” (follower of Jesus Christ) were co-opted by these “gatekeepers,” and as such, these words lost their original meaning. Continue Reading →
Ordained Into the Abstract: What does “Anglican” Mean?
In Christopher Armstrong’s brief history of U.S. fundamentalism, he cites that in the 1970s, “the movement began a tectonic shift from protecting theological truths in infra-denominational fights to guarding ‘Christian morality’ in a nation specially chosen by God.” As part of this shifting, terms like “evangelical” (Good News) and “Christian” (follower of Jesus Christ) were co-opted by these “gatekeepers,” and as such, these words lost their original meaning. Continue Reading →
Theocracy, Eh?
23 January 2006 Pilgrim Harper brings the culture wars north. By Kathryn Joyce From Le Cornichon A smart and serious fundamentalist runs for his nation’s top leadership position, and the paper 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 Continue Reading →