Religion & Spirituality

• I don’t think let(ting) uninsured people die is. I think that they should work towards making sure that people no matter what should live.
• 'It's Sadism'

Scott Keyes, Think Progress

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The most distasteful moment in Monday’s (Sep 12)  Republican presidential debate was when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked whether a 30 year old who gets in a catastrophic accident should be allowed to die if he doesn’t have health insurance and the Tea Party audience cheered in approval, shouting “yes!”

Following the debate, many commentators were taken aback by the death cheer, especially from a party that regularly touts its “Christian values.”

(Recently), ThinkProgress discussed the matter with a number of students at Liberty University, a conservative Christian college founded by Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg, Virginia.

The students were unanimous in their disapproval, calling it “un-Christian” to simply allow a person to die because they were uninsured. Unlike the cheering Tea Party audience, Liberty students we spoke with said the “Christian thing to do” would be to provide care to those in need, regardless of their personal situation.

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'It's Sadism' Huffington Post

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A new essay in an influential journal illuminates little-known intersections between Catholic thought and U.S. social history. But then it goes on to prescribe an odd fix for US labor woes: razing the wall between church and state.

Peter Laarman, Religion Dispatches

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I’ve about had my fill of the warmed-over Edmund Burke seeping all over bien-pensant social discourse. No one seems to have a good word to say about the Enlightenment anymore. These days they don’t even bother to dot the lines they draw between Diderot and Dachau. It’s becoming quite brazen—and brainless.

We get our Burkean bits in fairly mild doses from David Brooks, but much stronger doses aren’t hard to find. Case in point: In its Fall 2011 issue, the influential journal Democracy published “The Church of Labor,” a consideration of the historical significance of corporatism (no, not that kind) and, more specifically, of solidarism: the social ethic born of Roman Catholic belief and practice.

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Beth El's head rabbi, Rabbi Alexander Davis, said this event isn't about ethics or about politics; it's about fundraising.

Charles Turchick, Evergreene Digest

Evergreene Digest Editor's Note: On June 12 Beth El Synagogue, in St. Louis Park, MN, announced George W. Bush would be speaking at a fundraiser on September 21. (See related item, below.) This article is author Turchick's satirical response.

June 11, 2012: In a letter to its members, Beth El Synagogue announced today that it is excited about the appearance of David Berkowitz ("Son of Sam") at an August 8, 2012, "important fundraiser for...[the] synagogue." The letter continues, "His appearance coincides with the 35th anniversary of Mr. Berkowitz's arrest for the murder of six people and wounding of several others, a time when New Yorkers came together with a singular purpose."

Because Mr. Berkowitz will be appearing on furlough from Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, New York, security precautions will limit the attendance to 250 people. Tickets are priced from $1,250 to $3,600. Choice seats and pictures with Mr. Berkowitz in his prison garb will be afforded to the higher-priced ticket holders.

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Former President George W. Bush will be speaking at a Beth El Synagogue fundraiser Wednesday, September 21. A candlelight vigil against torture and war crimes will be held outside the synagogue at 5224 W. 26th St. (26th St. and Hwy. 100) in St. Louis Park, 4:00-7:00 p.m. Come any time during the vigil. Security screenings for people attending the $1,250-$3,600 per ticket event will begin at 4:30, and President Bush will speak at 6:00.

• How I Was Taught to Obey Men, Birth 8 Kids and Do Battle Against Secular America
• We were raised to fight the enemy, be it Satan or environmentalists and feminists; to come against them in spiritual warfare and at the polls.

Vyckie Garrison, RH Reality Check

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Quiverfull family, The Bates

Deep within America, beyond your typical evangelicals and run-of-the-mill fundamentalists, nurtured within the homeschool movement and growing by the day, are the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements. This is where I grew up.

I learned that women are to be homemakers while men are to be protectors and providers. I was taught that a woman should not have a career, but should rather keep the home and raise the children and submit to her husband, who is her god-given head and authority. I learned that homeschooling is the only godly way to raise children, because to send them to public school is to turn a child over to the government and the secular humanists. I was taught that children must be trained up in the way they should go every minute of every day. I learned that a woman is always under male authority, first her father, then her husband, and perhaps, someday, her son. I was told that children are always a blessing, and that it was imperative to raise up quivers full of warriors for Christ, equipped to take back the culture and restore it to its Christian foundations.

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