In the News: Clip-clippety-clip
A round-up of recent religion news. Continue Reading →
Tag: social justice
Shopping for Salvation in a Brand New World
George Gonzalez asks “Will the revolution be commodified?” Continue Reading →
Catholicism and The Colbert Report: An Interview with the Colbert Chaplain
Becky Garrison interviews The Colbert Report’s Chaplain, James Martin, SJ. Continue Reading →
The Very Thing That Made It Catholic
From Occupy Catholic, a new “testimony” by Steve Saporito:
I have been separated from the church for a long time, and the fulcrum of that split has always been my understanding of the sermon on the mount as the nexus of Catholic theology. I saw, from the vantage point of growing up in the church, a terrible paradox; on the one hand I learned a wonderful liturgy of social justice based on moral strength rooted in the lessons in the Beatitudes. It was my understanding that by putting those concerns at the core of our lives we will shine a light, as Catholics, for the rest of the world to see, and in the process make the world a better place, as we, individually embrace the very essence of God. But time and time again the church failed to overtly embrace the very thing that made it Catholic.
Boehner's Progressive Catholic Problem
E.J. Dionne, Jr. on the non-scandal that was John Boehner’s address to Catholic University:
And the story broke from the stereotypical narrative the media like to impose on Christians in general, and Catholics in particular. If the headline is “Conservative Catholics Denounce Liberal Politician on Abortion,” all the boilerplate is at the ready. But when the headline is “Catholic Progressives Challenge Conservative Politician on Social Justice,” this is something new and complicated. It’s far easier to write the 10th story of the week about Newt Gingrich.
Boehner’s Progressive Catholic Problem
E.J. Dionne, Jr. on the non-scandal that was John Boehner’s address to Catholic University:
And the story broke from the stereotypical narrative the media like to impose on Christians in general, and Catholics in particular. If the headline is “Conservative Catholics Denounce Liberal Politician on Abortion,” all the boilerplate is at the ready. But when the headline is “Catholic Progressives Challenge Conservative Politician on Social Justice,” this is something new and complicated. It’s far easier to write the 10th story of the week about Newt Gingrich.
Boehner’s Progressive Catholic Problem
E.J. Dionne, Jr. on the non-scandal that was John Boehner’s address to Catholic University:
And the story broke from the stereotypical narrative the media like to impose on Christians in general, and Catholics in particular. If the headline is “Conservative Catholics Denounce Liberal Politician on Abortion,” all the boilerplate is at the ready. But when the headline is “Catholic Progressives Challenge Conservative Politician on Social Justice,” this is something new and complicated. It’s far easier to write the 10th story of the week about Newt Gingrich.
Tough on Terrorism
Howard Fineman gets off on the new military brute, brain and brawn of Democrats:
“By calmly and meticulously overseeing the successful targeting of Osama bin Laden, President Barack Obama just proved himself — vividly, in almost Biblical terms — to be an effective commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the United States.” 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 →
The Roots of Racism
Rachel Sladja at Talking Points Memo has a good piece up about the roots of all the recent Shar’iah-is-coming-for-your-freedom hysteria. It’s worth a read for the research TPM did to trace the anti-Muslim commentary in the media over the past decade. But I can’t help but wonder if Islam (and Shari’ah) doesn’t just conveniently fit into the bogeyman placeholder that’s been consistently used by conservatives to manipulate foreign policy. Continue Reading →