Religion Dispatches
…ort and through security, I was too tired for breakfast. I slept the whole flight from RDU to Charlotte, but once I’d landed in Charlotte, with only twenty minutes to transfer to my Milwaukee flight, I was starving. Famished. Broken. But the only breakfast option I trusted was Starbucks, and every single Starbucks had a line that resembled a breakdown of civilization at the baggage claim. So I did not do that. I stopped at a newsstand slash conve…
Read More…vered. And until we have proper data in hand to analyze why voters express reservations about Mormonism, it’s worth being a little more judicious at least in characterizing what counts as anti-Mormonism. The pejorative term “cult” is classic evangelical Christian anti-Mormonism that taps into a historic strand of anti-Mormon rhetoric rooted in the American South. Exaggerating and sensationalizing the differences in Mormon theology or culture with…
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…in the animated chats of the online social networks and as readers of the online ISIS literature. This online network constituted a separate movement. In the Twitter chats they often would call themselves baqiyah, a term that means something that survives or endures, and in this case refers to the enduring online ISIS community. In one of a series of tweets from a teenager in Canada, he said that his parents found some of his messages and were tr…
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…taways, Germany-based FIAA GmbH is releasing the beta version of The Bible Online: Heroes, the first installment of a projected series of MMORTS (massively multiplayer online real-time strategy) “games” based on the Bible. MMORTS games take place in a world that continues to exist and evolve even while any given player isn’t playing. According to the press release, there is an RPG (role-playing game) component too; players can expect to play as A…
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…iquitous, and indispensable, cell phone, when I was approached by a Libyan customer. After learning that I was an American he said “Thank you for helping liberate my country from the dreaded dictator, Gaddafi. May he burn in hell! And as for those who killed your ambassador, may they burn in hell with him!” “They are a disgrace,” he said of the makers of the inflammatory video, “but they are not the cause for such outcry. Others are fomenting wha…
Read More…sionary growth in Mexico, Central, and South America. Over the years, some American Indian and Latin American indigenous Mormons have actively claimed a “Lamanite” identity and positioned themselves as the direct heirs of the Book of Mormon. (I have heard Navajo LDS friends tell me that what they read in the Book of Mormon resembles stories they’ve heard from their grandparents.) Today, the Church’s greatest convert growth in the US is among Latin…
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…ng an imperial vision of American power that imposes its hybrid-version of American democracy/American gods around the world through support of dictators considered “men of God” (Haiti’s Papa Doc Duvalier, for whom Family members arranged congressional support, Efrain Rios Montt, the Guatemalan killer championed by Pat Robertson, etc.). That, sadly, is the link between the killer bunny and its ostensible victim, fundamentalism and the establishmen…
Read More…ation are also outraged that women are not allowed to serve and have their service recognized (yes, ordained). Sadly, telling women ‘no’ this time with such pitiful reasoning only makes well intentioned people want women deacons all the more. This almost guarantees, my deep reservations notwithstanding, that women deacons in some form are coming to a church near you in the not too distant future, further cementing the patriarchal structure, this t…
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…re practically speaking, many people lack the technology they need to join online services, and even when they do have access, the experience can be awkward. Brian Weiser, a Modern Orthodox Jew from Denver, tried an online minyan but Zoom conferencing made the ritual feel disjointed. He missed “the communal aspect” of the prayers and has continued that part of his practice alone. The Zoom interface can be both a blessing and a curse. Tracey Deutsc…
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…eting itself (however flat-footedly) as the progressive, welcoming face of American Christianity makes sense as a way of distinguishing The Episcopal Church on the religious landscape from the evangelical Right and its culture wars against gay marriage and transgender rights, among other conservative bugaboos. Disaffected with the latter? The Episcopal Church welcomes you. Here’s the problem. This brand image is at odds with the fact that LGBTQ+ E…
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