Category: Faith

Athenae, Faith, Kids Today8 Comments

All Christians Should Have The Right to Bully You

Allison Hantschel

I will never understand why the greatest defenders of American Christianity seem to need to think that all Christians secretly want to behave like total assholes: “Anti-bullying legislation is exactly the same,” Mr. Fischer said. “It’s just another thinly veiled attempt to promote the homosexual agenda. No one is in favor of anyone getting bullied for any reason, but these anti-bullying policies become a mechanism for punishing Christian students who believe that homosexual behavior is not something that should be normalized.” Fischer is complaining about schools encouraging students to “Mix It Up” by sitting with different kids during lunch periods. … Continue reading All Christians Should Have The Right to Bully You

Athenae, Faith, Kids Today8 Comments

All Christians Should Have The Right to Bully You

I will never understand why the greatest defenders of American Christianity seem to need to think thatall Christians secretly want to behave like total assholes: “Anti-bullying legislation is exactly the same,” Mr. Fischer said. “It’s just another thinly veiled attempt to promote the homosexual agenda. No one is in favor of anyone getting bullied for any reason, but these anti-bullying policies become a mechanism for punishing Christian students who believe that homosexual behavior is not something that should be normalized.” Fischer is complaining about schools encouraging students to “Mix It Up” by sitting with different kids during lunch periods. I … Continue reading All Christians Should Have The Right to Bully You

Athenae, Faith, Immoral Values, Religion8 Comments

Intrinsic Evil

Illinois bishop Thomas Paprocki, formerly an auxiliary bishop of Chicago and generally somebody I would not have expected to bethis obtuse: There are many positive and beneficial planks in the Democratic Party Platform, but I am pointing out those that explicitly endorse intrinsic evils. My job is not to tell you for whom you should vote. But I do have a duty to speak out on moral issues. I would be abdicating this duty if I remained silent out of fear of sounding “political” and didn’t say anything about the morality of these issues. People of faith object to these … Continue reading Intrinsic Evil

Do Something, Doc, Faith14 Comments

$20 from a safety net

Her name was Rachael and she would have been 14 this year. I usually think about her as school gears up each fall, as kids shop for school supplies and new gym shoes. I think about her parents, both of whom are now well on their way to middle age. When Rachael was born, they were two scared 20-something kids with a daughter in danger. He was an agricultural laborer, and she was a stay-at-home mom. I thought about all of this today in the wake of Mitt Romney’s speech at the RNC last night. He spoke out against the … Continue reading $20 from a safety net

Athenae, Faith, Religion8 Comments

Avoidance

Allison Hantschel

So some members of a Baptist church came to the pastor and said, we heard you’re marrying some black folks in here and we’re not okay with that. All due respect, my children, the pastor replied, that you are freaked out by non-white peoples is not Jesus’s major problem at the moment. Nor is it mine. I am sorry, but you are going to have to suck it up and just … I don’t know, not come to the wedding? Were you even invited? Then what the heck do you care? Go home, watch Storage Wars and smoke marijuana like … Continue reading Avoidance

Athenae, Faith, Religion8 Comments

Avoidance

So some members of a Baptist church came to the pastor and said, we heard you’re marrying some black folks in here and we’re not okay with that. All due respect, my children, the pastor replied, that you are freaked out by non-white peoples is not Jesus’s major problem at the moment. Nor is it mine. I am sorry, but you are going to have to suck it up and just … I don’t know, not come to the wedding? Were you even invited? Then what the heck do you care? Go home, watch Storage Wars and smoke marijuana like … Continue reading Avoidance

Athenae, Faith, Religion, Stupid Republican Tricks10 Comments

Witness for the Persecution

Requiring insurance plans to cover contraception is just like dissolving the Catholic Church in England so Henry VII can marry a harlot: Making the connection to the Fortnight crystal-clear, the archbishop emphasized: “St. Thomas More could be said to represent that conscientious private employer or employee who seeks to avoid doing or facilitating moral evil in course of daily work while striving to live and work in accord with the demands of social justice. He stands for those who go about their daily work in accord with their faith . . . and those who understand how dangerous it is … Continue reading Witness for the Persecution

Athenae, Faith, Immoral Values, Religion, Stupid Republican Tricks13 Comments

Way to Pick Your Battles, Catholic Church

Allison Hantschel

Continuing their theme of assigning tasks based on angry wingnut e-mail forwards from America’s brothers-in-law, now U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops think the Girl Scouts are leading our young astray: The new inquiry will be conducted by the bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth. It will look into the Scouts’ “possible problematic relationships with other organizations” and various “problematic” program materials, according to a letter sent by the committee chairman, Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne, Ind., to his fellow bishops. The bishops’ conference provided a copy of the letter to The Associated Press, but otherwise declined … Continue reading Way to Pick Your Battles, Catholic Church

Athenae, Faith, Immoral Values, Religion, Stupid Republican Tricks13 Comments

Way to Pick Your Battles, Catholic Church

Continuing their theme of assigning tasks based on angry wingnut e-mail forwards from America’s brothers-in-law, now U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops think the Girl Scouts are leading our young astray: The new inquiry will be conducted by the bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth. It will look into the Scouts’ “possible problematic relationships with other organizations” and various “problematic” program materials, according to a letter sent by the committee chairman, Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne, Ind., to his fellow bishops. The bishops’ conference provided a copy of the letter to The Associated Press, but otherwise declined … Continue reading Way to Pick Your Battles, Catholic Church

Athenae, Faith, Immoral Values7 Comments

Nuns vs. Bishops

My money’s on the nuns: The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which represents 80% of America’s 57,000 nuns, was the subject of a lengthy of investigation led by Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio. The resulting report noted the good work they did with the poor and in running schools and hospitals, but also documented what it called a “grave” doctrinal crisis. It said the sisters were promoting radical feminist themes and criticised US nuns for challenging the bishops, who it said were “the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals”. The Archbishop of Seattle, Peter Sartain, is to … Continue reading Nuns vs. Bishops

Do Something, Doc, Faith14 Comments

$20 from a safety net

vffilak

Her name was Rachael and she would have been 14 this year. I usually think about her as school gears up each fall, as kids shop for school supplies and new gym shoes. I think about her parents, both of whom are now well on their way to middle age. When Rachael was born, they were two scared 20-something kids with a daughter in danger. He was an agricultural laborer, and she was a stay-at-home mom. I thought about all of this today in the wake of Mitt Romney’s speech at the RNC last night. He spoke out against the … Continue reading $20 from a safety net

Athenae, Faith, Immoral Values2 Comments

The Bishop Abuse Cover-Up Scandal

On trial in Philadelphia: Few victims or members of the public have been attending the trial in downtown Philadelphia, but retired Philadelphia detective Arthur Baselice III of Mantua, N.J., turned out Monday. His 28-year-old son, Arthur Jr., died of a drug overdose in 2006, after his civil lawsuit against the church accusing his high school principal of molesting him was thrown out because of legal time limits. The former principal, a Franciscan friar, is in prison for stealing nearly $900,000 from the school and the Franciscans, some of which fed the younger Baselice’s drug addiction, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors are … Continue reading The Bishop Abuse Cover-Up Scandal

Athenae, Faith, Religion6 Comments

What Churches Risk

In the headlong rush into sexual political fights: It’s too bad U.S. bishops are spending so much political and cultural capital on the religious liberty fight which is now becoming bogged down over contraception. Too bad because while they are engaged in what I suspect will be a losing battle in a rhetorical war, the voice they are raising, rare these days in Washington, against a real war is getting lost in the cultural haze. AsU.S. Senators have essentially now begun taking orders directly from AIPAC and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—in a manner that would no doubt generate outrage … Continue reading What Churches Risk

Athenae, Faith, Religion4 Comments

Living for Bread Ain’t Worth Living At All

RMJ on a Lent I could get into: You have heard; you have seen; perhaps today you even bear the ashes on your head; perhaps you didn’t, or you wiped them off at the church door. It doesn’t matter! What matters is what you do, and if you remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return, then you’ll realize that we are all dust! And we are all deserving, we are all going down, in the end, to the same place, and it’s high time we started sharing the joy of the experience rather than fearing we … Continue reading Living for Bread Ain’t Worth Living At All

Athenae, Faith5 Comments

Cheap Shots and Christ on Sale

The NYT’sCharles Blow tried to make a funny about Romney’s magic underwear, failed, and got smacked around for it, but what I want to talk about is this statement: ‏ @thepubliceditor:I applaud@CharlesMBlow for apologizing for his tweet on Romney. Criticism based on religion is inappropriate, on Twitter or anywhere else. Blow really should have been reprimanded for not being able to come up with anything better than the magic underwear thing. You work at theTimes, man, put your shoulder into it! Have one of your interns look up something about Mormonism that all of Twitter hasn’t adequately addressed before now. … Continue reading Cheap Shots and Christ on Sale

Athenae, Faith4 Comments

Both Sides Always

Who can tell what’s really going on? Religious liberty has been a leading topic in recent weeks because of the Obama administration’s mandate that insurance companies provide free birth control even to people employed by church-affiliated organizations, including schools and hospitals. Opponents frame the debate as one of religious liberty while proponents of the mandate say it’s about women’s health and access to contraception. Figuring out who’s right is WAY TOO HARD, you guys. Especially right after quoting shit like this: Romney rarely ventures into social issues in his campaign speeches, but people participating in a town hall-style meeting one … Continue reading Both Sides Always

Athenae, Faith, Immoral Values7 Comments

How Life Began at Conception

ViaNtodd, here’sa great piece of history: That year, Christianity Today — edited by Harold Lindsell, champion of “inerrancy” and author ofThe Battle for the Bible — published a special issue devoted to the topics of contraception and abortion. That issue included many articles that today would get their authors, editors — probably even theirreaders — fired from almost any evangelical institution. For example, one article by a professor from Dallas Theological Seminary criticized the Roman Catholic position on abortion as unbiblical. Jonathan Dudley quotes from the article in his bookBroken Words: The Abuse of Science and Faith in American Politics. … Continue reading How Life Began at Conception

Athenae, Faith, Immoral Values, Religion, Stupid Republican Tricks12 Comments

War on the Modern World

Go for it. Just go for it. Burn it all down. Pile everything you’ve ever said was important to you in the street, douse it in gasoline, and let the blaze light up the sky. This puts it all on the table. Republicans and Catholics and Republican Catholics and Republicans who just say they’re Catholic and Catholics who are Republican because abortion seems yucky are now all just going to have to say it now. They would rather lots and lots of women die from preventable conditions, too many unwanted children, and abortions that should never have to happen, than … Continue reading War on the Modern World

Athenae, Faith, Immoral Values, Religion8 Comments

Intrinsic Evil

Allison Hantschel

Illinois bishop Thomas Paprocki, formerly an auxiliary bishop of Chicago and generally somebody I would not have expected to be this obtuse: There are many positive and beneficial planks in the Democratic Party Platform, but I am pointing out those that explicitly endorse intrinsic evils. My job is not to tell you for whom you should vote. But I do have a duty to speak out on moral issues. I would be abdicating this duty if I remained silent out of fear of sounding “political” and didn’t say anything about the morality of these issues. People of faith object to … Continue reading Intrinsic Evil

Faith, Jude18 Comments

Religion Is Poison

It comes in Christian and Buddhist and Animist and… When I was talking to a friend this weekend about the same stuff I put inyesterday’s post, she mentioned that his Mormonism also put people off. I said, sure it does for the crazy fundamentalists who think that Jesus rode to work on a dinosaur, but most people don’t really care about that; his Daddy Warbucks/sea snake mash-up is much more of a problem. So then she started talking about just how crazy Mormonism is. Which, don’t get me wrong–it’s nuts. But I don’t see it as any crazier than any … Continue reading Religion Is Poison

Athenae, Faith, Immoral Values, So Called Liberal Media12 Comments

Ross Douthat: Love is a Bowl of Sugar

OH GOD IT’S NOT LIKE THAT YOU CLOWNASS: Many conservatives would go this far with Frank: Government is one way we choose to work together, and there are certain things we need to do collectively that only government can do. But there are trade-offs as well, which liberal communitarians don’t always like to acknowledge. When government expands, it’s often at the expense of alternative expressions of community, alternative groups that seek to serve the common good. Unlike most communal organizations, the government has coercive power — the power to regulate, to mandate and to tax. These advantages make it all … Continue reading Ross Douthat: Love is a Bowl of Sugar

Athenae, Faith, Immoral Values3 Comments

Local Church Acts Reasonably; Church Hierarchy, Not So Much

Oh, sit DOWN like you supposed to: CHICAGO — On the heels of an agreement about parade times reached between Chicago LGBT Pride organizers and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel church — which sits on the June parade route — the Windy City’s Cardinal Francis George compared the event to “something like the Ku Klux Klan.” “You don’t want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism,” the Cardinal told Fox News Chicago on Sunday. When FOX tells you to chill out with the inappropriate and inflammatory rhetoric, you … Continue reading Local Church Acts Reasonably; Church Hierarchy, Not So Much

Athenae, Faith, Stupid Republican Tricks6 Comments

A Secular Nation

Newt, Newt, Newt: The quote came from Newt Gingrich, who condemned the very idea of a secular state. “A country that has been now since 1963 relentlessly in the courts driving God out of public life shouldn’t be surprised at all the problems we have,” the thrice-married, serial adulterer said. “Because we’ve in fact attempted to create a secular country, which I think is frankly a nightmare.” Several things. First of all, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually miss Bob Dole. I miss the intelligent, high-minded Republican campaigning of the FREAKING 1990s, is how crazy this shitfest … Continue reading A Secular Nation