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Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired

By Rachel Wagner

…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…

Spiritual Unplugging, Or What to Do When There is Wifi at the Ashram

By Matt Hamilton

…self-interrogation boiled, my hand extended to the right. I reached for my phone, but I found nothing. At first I laughed at my instinct, my muscle memory. The phone, with its glowing screen, gave me solace and control. But I was tied to my cushion for another hour, and in this ashram for another day, so email would have to wait. I panicked. My heart raced. Would my editor be asking for me? Would a reply from that politician’s secretary sit unansw…

Mitt Romney’s Prosperity Gospel

By Peter Laarman

…eathered nests who are preaching sacrifice might be in real trouble on the cheap grace front. Obama cannot and should not condemn those in the electorate who buy into Romney’s “there will be showers of blessing” message, but he probably does need to get his preacher voice on to remind folks that all covenant promises are conditional. That is, he should tell us in a religiously-resonant way that expecting God’s favor without loving mercy and doing…

Missing the Forest for the Witches

By Joseph Laycock

…Netsweeper, the library’s Internet filtering service, blocks all of these sites because they are categorized as “occult” and “criminal skills” sites. Netsweeper, a global corporation based in Canada, categorizes websites and allows clients to choose which ones to block. In addition to following state and federal laws to block child pornography, the Salem Library also elected to block all sites that Netsweeper categorized as related to the “occult…

Put Your Money Where Your Mind Is: A For-Profit Meditation Studio Opens in New York

By Michael Schulson

…s merchandise, including $40 T-shirts and $32 tank tops. For $150, you can buy a special candle in a porcelain jar, and meditation cushions branded with MNDFL’s handsome heptagonal logo retail for $75. There are stacks of Rinzler’s books for sale, along with titles like Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience and The Wisdom of Insecurity. Rinzler told me that their clientele has been diverse—racially, socioeconomically, and in terms of sexual…

Scope Bacon, Twttr Hoaxes & Joel Osteen’s Big Reveal

By Deborah Whitehead

…announcement. The announcement even featured an attempt to discredit other sites to make the story seem more believable. It was the combination of all of these sites and sources, and the real news outlets that then picked the story up as newsworthy and continued to spread it—the self-justifying, logical circularity of “news” and an (at least initial) inability for users to distinguish between credible news outlets and non-credible ones—that contri…

Snake-Handlers, False Messiahs, and a Few Great Souls: 14 Who Died in 2014

By Daniel Silliman

…tion of 71 temples between 1998 and 2005. These included three at historic sites: the Palmyra New York Temple, the Winter Quarters Nebraska Temple, and the Nauvoo Illinois Temple, whose re-construction Sorenson called “one of the great spiritual experiences of this life.”Sorenson died at 81. Robert K. Larson A Catholic priest convicted of sexually abusing altar boys, Robert K. Larson died at 84. Ordained in 1958, he was a priest in the Wichita, Ka…

‘I Don’t Buy It’: The Gospel According to Frank Underwood

By Cathleen Falsani

…eyes of Jesus, and says, “Love. That’s what you’re selling? Well, I don’t buy it.” And then he spits at Jesus’ face. The act was shocking and yes, sacrilegious. I don’t believe we ever would have seen such a display on network television where advertisers rule and protests or boycotts surely would ensue. But it was authentic to Frank’s character, an unabashed, unapologetic villain. He’s a monster, but he’s still a human, if only just. Perhaps wor…

Burning Down the Temple: Religion and Irony in Black Rock City

By Sarah M. Pike

…lture. Burning Man exemplifies the movement of religious meaning-making to sites outside traditional religious institutions. It joins a host of other events around the world and especially here in the U.S. that function for participants as sacred destinations: the Super Bowl, Coachella and other large music festivals, Rainbow gatherings and Neopagan festivals, to name a few. Burning Man offers a bit of everything available at other large festivals…

How Much Did Jesus Care About Sex?

By Peter Laarman

…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…