Religion Dispatches
…cost of true discipleship. The price it was called upon to pay was all too cheap…We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale; we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition…Was there ever a more terrible and disastrous instance of Christianizing the world than this? It’s regrettable, I think, that “cheap grace” has turned into a kind of meme that Rod Dreher can toss into his debate with Andrew Sullivan without…
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…as a Master’s student at Fuller working the switchboard part-time, and the number one phone call that came through went something like this: “Can you connect me to C. Peter Wagner’s Church Growth Institute? I’d like to buy some materials.” No one was happier than I was when he retired from Fuller and moved to Colorado Springs! I felt like I worked at a catalog call-in center. Seriously. I would never have expected to be talking about Wagner in con…
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…those victims who did report their victimization to Episcopal leaders, the number one assessment from both trans/non-binary and cisgender respondents was that “little or no change” came about as a result. 20.6% of transgender and non-binary survivors reported that they simply left the church altogether. By comparison, “only” 10.7% of cisgender women felt they had to leave. (Curiously, there’s no data on this front for LGB-identified Episcopalians….
Read More…plugged-in lifestyle doesn’t really get at the heart of the issue. I think the Amish, of all people, have it right. It’s not so much about what you as an individual are doing or not doing, as the effect technology has on the community: Why not make life easier and just put [a phone] in the house? “What would that lead to?” another Amish man asked me. “We don’t want to be the kind of people who will interrupt a conversation at home to answer a tel…
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…ability of cell phones to be used for impure activities, some Jewish cell-phone users have requested so-called “kosher” phones. The idea is to offer conservative Jews a phone that is free of “corrupting influences” of the sort that are already avoided by ultra-orthodox Jews through a ban on television and some radio. Reuters reported in February 2008 that Bezeq Israel Telecom launched a new “kosher” landline phone service, which will block calls…
Read More…es ECI’s leadership – knows this to be the case. Which makes ECI’s video a cheap lie — yet another in a long litany of desperate efforts by the far right to convert the largely liberal American Jewish community to neo-conservatism, hawkish policies on Israel, and the belief that “Barack Hussein Obama” is a Muslim. That said, there actually are two interesting forms of antisemitism going on here. First is the antisemitism of ECI itself. To tug at…
Read More…slogans about immigration reform. On line I heard that parishes with large numbers of undocumented immigrants had received many tickets. No outside food or water, statues, gifts or selfie sticks were permitted. Despite 10,000 folding chairs, most of us would have no choice but to stand. Once in my appointed place behind the last row of seats, I found myself in a community of fellow pilgrims, lottery winners from local parishes, nearby colleges, an…
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…ualism is bad. Also, he notes but offers no explanation for the decreasing number of marriages in many countries. I am glad to see that in Section 34 he understands this basic fact of contemporary western culture: The ideal of marriage, marked by a commitment to exclusivity and stability, is swept aside whenever it proves inconvenient or tiresome. The fear of loneliness and the desire for stability and fidelity exist side by side with a growing fe…
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…Israeli left has always been more critical of the Israeli government than American Jews. “I think American Jews continue to still have a desire and a belief and a strong sense that Israel is a land of peace and does want peace,” said Grater. He added that American Jews have “blinders,” and that “we have a hard time believing” that “this great country that’s been a dream of our ancestry for thousands of years really might be doing things we disapp…
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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…
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