Let me share with you what the trouble with the poor is. The trouble with the poor is that they are messy. Oy. That’s the opening line from a blog post written by British priest Ray Blake. A few paragraphs in, he explains that …’the poor’ challenge our complacency. They interrupt our comfort, our prayer, our routine, bringing the mess of their lives into our lives. It would be easy — and it sure is tempting — to hang Father Blake with his own (admittedly inartful) words; and sure enough, various journalists in the U.K. did just that. For instance, The Daily Mail gleefully said that Blake launched “a scathing attack” on the very people he is honor-bound to love and help as a servant of Christ. The Argus claims that the priest “condemned” the poor and that he “raged” about the topic. And so on. To be honest, when I skimmed the headlines that the priest’s controversial piece generated, I thought it might be fun to join the melee and rip him on this blog. But a funny thing happened on the way to this trial-by-Internet. I read his article, and it seems to me that Blake got a raw deal. My reflex to pile on turned into my wanting to say a few words in the man’s defense. While I do, hold the pitchforks. [Click headline for more…] Read more
Here’s something you don’t see every day: A case argued in front of a high court. The U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t allow cameras, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court does, and so we have video of Tuesday’s argument to pull the Pledge of Allegiance from public school classrooms because they are discriminatory against atheist students: David Niose, who represented the plaintiffs is the first speaker in that video. The judges grilled him but he responded to each argument well. The judges asked even tougher questions, it seemed to me, of the other side. Lisa Redmond of the Lowell Sun summarized his portion of the arguments this way: [Click headline for more…] Read more
In a recent Slate column, Emily Yoffe offers far-too-cautious advice for a mother whose child is dealing with religious proselytization in the classroom. Here’s the setup: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Makeda Pennycooke, executive pastor of operations at Freedom House Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, sent an email to church members this week introducing a new policy regarding which people she wanted to welcome newcomers at the front door. White people. “Only white people.” Carmen Thomas, a volunteer at the church for two years, couldn’t believe it: “I was floored. Like it was a jaw dropper. You can put a white face all over the front door. But when you come through those doors, you’re going to see African Americans, you’re gonna see Asians. You’re going to see people of color.” The justification for Pennycooke’s new policy was that “first impressions matter.” Her email explained that she wanted “the best of the best on the front doors.” Apparently the non-white parishioners didn’t make that cut. One has to wonder if skin color was the only criteria for being “the best.” What about attendance levels? Volunteer frequency? Personality traits? Complicating this story even more is the fact that Pennycooke herself is black. [Click headline for more…] Read more
In yesterday’s New York Times, Laurie Goodstein had an interesting article about how bar/bat mitzvahs were getting a “new look” of sorts because — can you believe it?! — a lot of young Jews would just go through the motions without really caring much about the teachings of the faith: [Click headline for more…] Read more
You may have heard the story of a Montana judge who sentenced a teacher to only 30 days in jail for having sex with a 14-year-old student who later committed suicide. (The judge has since ordered a retrial.) Well, reader Zack pointed out to me something that has gone unnoticed by the media. Judge G. Todd Baugh wears a power bracelet: So this guy has a history of poor judgment… Read more
Two days ago, I wrote about Israel’s education authorities censoring science textbooks — specifically, removing information about female sexual organs and human reproduction. A friend then sent me a link to a mindbending 2012 interview with Deborah Feldman, who grew up in the Satmar sect among Brooklyn’s Hasidic Jews. She was forced into marriage at 17, but, encouraged by college friends, mustered the courage to leave that deeply misogynist culture some three years ago. Feldman wrote a riveting book about her experiences: Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots. In this post, I’ll simply do some prodigious quoting from the interview — or you can read the complete exchange between Feldman and interviewer Sara Stewart for yourself, here. [Click headline for more…] Read more
If you’ve ever assumed that all Christians harbor animosity toward LGBT people, this organization has a message for you. Inspired by Dan Savage’s youth-oriented It Gets Better Project, a group of Christians have launched The Not All Like That (NALT) Christians Project, a campaign where “Christians proclaim their belief in full equality.” Savage himself helped develop the campaign, along with pastor and writer John Shore and Truth Wins Out leaders Wayne Besen and Evan Hurst. Here’s their mission statement, in their own words: The purpose of the NALT Christians Project is to give LGBT-affirming Christians a means of proclaiming to the world — and especially to young gay people — their belief and conviction that there is nothing anti-biblical or at all inherently sinful about being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Like It Gets Better, the campaign will use a video-sharing platform to spread a simple message: Not all Christians are anti-gay. The campaign launched Monday with around 30 videos, mostly from allies. Here’s one example from fellow blogger Fred Clark: [Click headline for more…] Read more
Pseudo-historian David Barton knows so little about history that his book on Thomas Jefferson was taken off the shelves for containing too many lies. He apparently also knows so little about math that he thinks correlation must imply causation. In a recent video, he spoke about how a “God-fearing approach to education” is what we all need, adding that the removal of mandatory Bible readings from public schools led to the education crisis we’re in now: [Click headline for more…] Read more
