A collection of news and ideas on the general theme gathered from fields and beaches anywhere.
• Something is wrong when people who argue that the “Christian view” of sexual ethics legitimizes legal disenfranchisement of gay and lesbian people actually engage in criminal acts. Here’s a case of a Mennonite pastor who helped a woman once in a same-sex relationship in Vermont to spirit her child out of the country—and thus deny her former partner visiting rights the courts in Vermont had assured.
• Silicon Valley is often thought of as a place that has no interest in, and less use for, matters of religion. In this interesting piece from the Financial Times Weekend’s Life and Arts section of August 10, 2012, April Dembowsky offers a different perspective on America’s most innovative landscape.
• Jeffrey Pugh from Elon University makes the interesting observation on CNN that the fact Barack Obama is the only person on a nationwide ticket this year who happens to be Protestant is less significant than the fact that the other three candidates running for president or vice-president happen to be Mormon (Romney) or Catholic (Ryan and Biden)—two faiths historically marginalized and disadvantaged in America. Today, the marginal is mainstream (and just maybe, the mainstream is becoming marginal—part of what may explain the emergence of the Tea Party).
• William Cavanaugh of DePaul University in Chicago has recently written a brilliant essay that will challenge what you think about when you hear the world “religion.” Spoiler alert: It’s an invented category to make the modern state safe from matters of ultimate concern.