All Entries in the "Views, News, & Issues" Category
A QUESTION OF PRIORITIES
By Louis A. Ruprecht Jr., Georgia State University….
President Obama’s Press Secretary, Jay Carney, put it this way: “The President believes that everyone who serves the American people by working for this government needs to hold themselves to the highest standards of public service.” Mitt Romney was pithier; he said he’d “clean house.” A thoughtful US citizen might well wonder what they were referring to, sadly enough, because there are so many scandals to choose from.
ROY MOORE, REDIVIVUS
Louis A. Ruprecht Jr., Georgia State University….
One of the dangers in reporting on the Republican presidential primaries, and now the looming presidential election season, is that national issues and agendas drown out any real connection to more local issues and concerns. I was reminded of this again last week as I drove through heavily wooded back roads of Alabama, and saw signage on trees relating to the primary election they held in back mid-March. Over and over again, I saw the name: Roy Moore.
Weathering Religion: Weather Channel Theodicies?
By Kate Daley-Bailey, Religion Nerd…..
The article itself did not surprise me… but the comments from the website’s respondents most certainly did. What I found most intriguing was the theological language being used on this modern media site, one explaining scientifically natural weather phenomena and includes no reference to any theological agenda. Here are just a few examples: “God loves us so much and He is trying to get our attention one more time before He judges the earth. He wants us to live and not die. Wake up, people.” And, “I pray God’s protection during this difficult time. May He give us His peace, comfort, and strength. Romans 12″
SLUT
By Maureen Dempsey, RNC-OB…..
Just what exactly is a slut? According to Rush Limbaugh, because Sandra Fluke thinks that all insurance providers – even those with a religious objection – should provide coverage for contraception, she is a slut. “She wants us to pay her for having sex,” Mr. Limbaugh claimed, “what does that make her? A slut, right? A prostitute.” To Mr. Limbaugh the word slut signifies a bad woman – a woman with no value. And sexual activity is the criterion that Mr. Limbaugh is using to determine value. Does she have sex? Yes? Then she is bad. No sex? Then she is good.
Trans-Vaginal Politics
Maureen Dempsey, RNC-OB….
This morning, on the Huffington Post, the first story to catch my eye was this: “David Albo, Virginia Lawmaker, Says Wife Wouldn’t Have Sex Because Of Transvaginal Ultrasound Bill.” As I clicked on the headline, I thought, this is going to be good. And the gentleman from Fairfax didn’t disappoint me. I watched a three-minute video of Mr. Albo describing to his fellow delegates how he tried to seduce his wife with a combination of red wine and the Redskins on big screen television. They were on the sofa, he was snuggling up to her while changing the channel, things were heating up…when he inadvertently stopped on MSNBC and saw his name plastered across the 46-inch screen and heard his colleague, David Englin, repeatedly using the term “trans-vaginal.” After a few minutes of this, his wife excused herself and went to bed alone.
Whose Church?
Louis A. Ruprecht Jr., Georgia State University….
And it suddenly hit me: these people invoke saint’s names the way Protestants invoke denominations. The Church of Saint George, the Church of Saint Spyridon, the Church of Saint Stephen, the Church of Saint Catherine, the Church of the All Holy Mother of God… all Orthodox churches, and all different too. On a casual drive through any major American metropolis, you’ll see a similar string of various and varying Christian churches. I’ll take my home city of Atlanta as an example. If you drive down the central section of Ponce de Leon Avenue, a Lutheran Church is followed by a Mormon Church, then a Melkite Church, then a Presbyterian Church, and then an Antiochene Church, all within under a mile.
No Sport For Old Men
Louis A. Ruprecht Jr., Georgia State University….
The Super Bowl continues to be one of the most visible and influential cultural events in the United States. For that very reason, it always warrants a closer look. This year was no exception, but what the look reveals is unexpected. Two years ago, the big story was not about the game, but rather about the advertising. The family of Tim Tebow was alleged to be involved in an anti-abortion advertisement that would suggest that they had considered aborting Tebow, in order to put a face on the loss of potential represented by abortion. The ad proved to be pretty benign, but the controversy lingered. The whole debate was shot through with religion.
Recovering Catholic Ethos and Practice
By Kate Daley Bailey….
My family’s religious affiliation is best described as ‘recovering Catholic.’ While we often say this in jest, I find it compelling that although we may be disillusioned with the papal abuses, restrictive doctrines on women in the priesthood, birth control methods, and various other concerns, my family members who have broken with the church still often identify as Catholic. I think of my Catholicism like some Jews describe their Judaism. Judaism is often described as a religion and a culture… and while many people associate Judaism with the purely religious aspects, Jews who no longer practice the religious prescriptions of their religion may still identify as Jewish. My family often gravitates toward other Catholics, recovering or those still within the Church. We might be done with the Catholic Church but we refuse to give up Catholicism.
Creative Inspiration: Sexual Assault and a Bag of Excrement
By Heather Abraham….
Two years ago on New Year’s Eve morning, I boarded a MARTA train at 7AM and began my journey to an office job in downtown Atlanta. Before the train reached the first stop, an inebriated man approached me and grabbed both of my breasts. All the while repeatedly screaming, “Mamasita!” I punched the man in the forehead, knocked him to the ground, stepped over his body, exited the train car, and entered another. For the remainder of the trip, I sat and reflected on the strange way I was ending the year and the detached manner in which I reacted to my attacker. Twenty minutes later, I exited the train at the Five Points Station and found myself in the middle of a freak show; Peachtree Road was in the chaotic process of transforming itself for the New Year’s Eve celebration and Peach drop.
A Further Note on Cronus and Chronos
By Louis A. Ruprecht, Jr., Georgia State University…..
I recently published a piece at “Religion Dispatches” about the Roman winter festival called Saturnalia. A commentator noted that I had inadvertently confused (or rather, conflated) two very different divinities in that piece: namely, the Greek figures of Cronus and Chronos. I was grateful for the opportunity this provided to say what I should have said then with a bit more care and clarity, and the detail of these reflections seems perfectly suited to the non-at-all nerdy audience at “Religion Nerd.” So here goes. Greek and Roman religions were religions without canonical scriptures; their mythology is notoriously complex and, to modern eyes, often contradictory.
Are Christians taking Christ out of Christmas?
By Heather Abraham…..
As Christian groups continue to disagree on the “War on Christmas” issue, a recent survey by LifeWay Research, a Christian organization, may shed some light on this manufactured crisis that continues to capture so many headlines. As reported in the USA Today article, For Many, Jesus isn’t the Reason for the Season, 74% of those polled ‘”told LifeWay many of the things they enjoy this season “have nothing to do with the birth of Jesus,”‘ and only 37% reported including Jesus in their Christmas celebrations
The “Business” of Being Christian: The Ethics of Usury
By Kate Daley-Bailey….
For thousands of years, the Christian Church has identified “usury” as a sin… however various theologians and scholars living within these thousands of years disagreed over exactly what “usury” was and was not. A brief exploration of the term “usury” (and its multiple manifestations) may lead us to a better understanding of what was actually being prohibited by various religious communities, especially Christian ones.
Why the Poor are Just Plain Lazy: Newt Gingrich and the Calvinist Roots of the American Work Ethic
By James Dennis LoRusso, Emory University…..
Undoubtedly, most people in this country understand hard work to be a virtue, but in Newt’s statement resides a subtle assumption: Being poor is a sign of moral failure on the part of the individual and the poor community. The mass appeal of this belief, that poverty itself is a sign of moral deficiency, results from the particular way the so-called “Protestant work ethic” is situated in American culture. The root of this ethic comes out of the strict Calvinist tendencies of colonial New England. The Dissenting Puritans that settled Massachusetts in the seventeenth century held a view that hard work signified virtue. Earlier thinkers of the Reformation like Martin Luther and John Calvin turned Catholic notions of work as penance for sin on their head and painted every individual’s “vocation” or “calling” as a contribution to God’s creation.
The Sacred and the Strange: Occupying the Tea Party Rhetoric?
By Kate Daley-Bailey….
“American Nazis support the Occupy Wall Street Movement?” This headline ripped through the conservative news outlets like wildfire. Christmas came early for Fox News. My curiosity was peaked… I am a fence sitter regarding the Occupy Wall Street movement… primarily because I refuse to join a movement which will not outline its agenda and even then I am leery. I have to know specifically what and who I am protesting. My fence-sitting is engendered by my recent research into how the Nazis gained power in Germany and were backed surprisingly by many high standing church leaders, scholars, and much of the German population. You can imagine my surprise when I read the above headlines. Was this yet another example of propaganda generated by the Fox News-types of the American media to damn the liberals of the Occupy movement? Yes… but it was also something more for me.
