There are those who might argue that religious views upholding male superiority, male-only leadership in religious posts and female subservience within the religion are simply a pretense for a pre-existing misogyny. The religious claims, in this view, are a pretext or an excuse, rather than a genuine belief derived from the faith itself. In this view, the religious arguments are an after-the-fact effort to rationalize the prior misogyny and obsession with power, control and dominance. I think it’s important to... Read more

… but I don’t know what that is. Merill Perlman sorts out something I needed to have sorted out. Something improvised as a temporary fix is “jury-rigged.” … Something that is “jerry-built,” though, is shoddily built, usually out of inferior materials. … To be fair, things can be “jury-rigged” and “jerry-built,” meaning temporary and lousy, and it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference. But if you conflate the two phrases and making something “jerry-rigged” or “jury-built,” you’re guilty of idiom... Read more

Charles Colson remains one of the most cynically dishonest creatures in American politics. Evangelical Christians love the guy for his prison-conversion story, but he is not an honest man and should not be trusted. Charles Colson says things that aren’t true. On purpose. With intent to deceive. This is a matter of public record. Colson says things that he knows are not true. Colson says things that he knows are not true in order to mislead others into supporting his... Read more

Sen. John F. Kennedy, Speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, Sept. 12, 1960 (via Talk Left) I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office... Read more

Who speaks for Catholics? Catholic polity says the hierarchy speaks for the church. Mostly. But it also allows that the overwhelming consensus of the laity cannot be ignored. So when the consensus of the Catholic laity is in conflict with the assertions of the bishops, it may be legitimate to heed the laity as the true voice of the church. And right now the U.S. Catholic bishops are in conflict with the U.S. Catholic laity on (at least) two significant... Read more

The Christian Century spent much of last week eagerly reminding us that its very name is a relic of the past. Like the Religion News Service, it spent the week playing ring around the collar — rallying to support the Catholic bishops in defense of the proposition that clergy unable to command arbitrary obedience from their flocks should be able to conscript civil law to compel such obedience. The Century and RNS produced a series of hand-wringing articles by men.... Read more

Whitney Houston died Saturday in Los Angeles. She was 48. And she had an amazing voice. Read more