Jacob J. Erickson on Killing of Cecil the Lion As Part of "Larger Theological History of Environmental, Gendered, and Colonial Injustice"

In several comments yesterday, I recommended Jacob J. Erickson's recent essay at Religion Dispatches entitled "The Martyrdom of Cecil the Lion." What I like about Erickson's approach to this story is that he frames it as a story about "a larger theological history of environmental, gendered, and colonial injustice." I think he's right to see the story in this way.

Leah Mickens on Kenyan Catholic Bishops' Response to Polio Vaccination Campaign: Problem Is Not Just Kenyan Bishops

Yesterday, Leah Mickens published a statement about the response of the Catholic bishops of Kenya to the polio vaccination campaign in their nation, about which I had posted. As I did, Leah notes that the Kenyan bishops had previously opposed a tetanus vaccination initiative with claims that it was a covert attempt to make Kenyan women infertile. She points out that Islamic clerics in some countries have also been maintaining that polio vaccinations are used by the West to sterilize or give contraceptives to non-Western people.

Quote for Day: "Why Is It an Animal Being Shot Gathers More Empathy Than Black People Being Killed for Nothing in America?"

Why is it an animal being shot gathers more empathy than black people being killed for nothing in America. #Iknowtheanswer #whiteracisttears

— ProfB (@AntheaButler) July 29, 2015

Anthea Butler of the department of religious studies at University of Pennsylvania, commenting on the widespread outrage of Americans at the shooting of Cecil the lion by dentist Walter Palmer . . . . 

The Doctored Gotcha Planned Parenthood Video and Catholic Responses to It: Some Critical Questions

I haven't talked about that doctored gotcha video made by David Daleiden, who is in cahoots with the odious right-wing gotcha activist James O'Keefe. I haven't discussed it since I knew I could count on various centrist Catholic publications, whose métier is, after all, to give intellectual respectability to the ideas of the hard right no matter how disreputable, to do that job for Catholics. I knew I could count on centrist Catholic publications to clothe the video and those promoting it in "objective" newspapers like the New York Times — can anyone say Ross Douthat? — in respectable garb, even as those publications claim to stand in some mythic, objective "middle" space devoid of commitments to the agenda of either left or right.

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: Kenyan Catholic Bishops Oppose Polio Vaccination for Children

One minute, the Catholic bishops of Kenya are up in arms about the fact that the U.S. president dares to defend the human rights of a criminalized minority group in their country — the LGBT citizens of Kenya. As the right-wing Catholic media outlet Catholic News Agency (whose newsfeed directly links to the official website of the Kenyan Catholic conference) reported after Mr. Obama's remarks in Kenya, African bishops are depicting his statements defending gay rights as a form of "ideological colonization" of Africa by the West.

Stephanie Krehbiel on Violence, Community, and Struggle for LGBTQ Justice in the Mennonite Church: Parallels to Catholic Conversations — Or, Why LGBT Folks Remain the Problem Even As Straight Men Engage in Sexual Predation

I've mentioned the work of Mennonite American Studies scholar Stephanie Krehbiel here in the past — for instance, in this February 2014 posting highlighting an article she published at Religion Dispatches on the parallels between "the Woody Allen problem" and the story of Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder. As she notes, in the stories of both of these men, we encounter troubling questions about the ability of not merely conservative social and ecclesial structures, but also liberal ones, to shelter and offer excuses for the predatory sexual behavior of powerful men.

Men (American Ones) and Their Guns: Two Takes on Lafayette Shooting

Hot off the press this morning, two noteworthy observations about the shooting in Lafayette, Louisiana, on Thursday: