Religion Dispatches
…d for a theological category to come to terms with our context, the word concupiscence leapt out at me. A theme that emerges in Augustine’s corpus is how we have misguided desire, or lust and passion, in relation to the material world and other human beings. How does Augustine define lust and passion? He often describes it as concupiscence: strong desire, especially sexual, that sometimes implies sin or evil. Concupiscence refers to compulsive and…
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…the debate about Left Behind. Among evangelical Christians who like the franchise —which doesn’t include all of them—there are real differences about what the film should be. In this way, Left Behind represents a big question about the persistent problem of the market for faith-and-family films. The past few years have seen attempt after attempt to do what Lalonde wants to do: make quality movies that please evangelicals and also appeal to a wider…
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…you in hell if you dispute his prescription. Many who question God’s existence are more concerned with His relevance to them than any metaphysics. We can only be free if we remove the shackles of faith, these self-ruining feelings of incompleteness, prudery and debasement, and accept the inevitability of our random lives. I don’t mean to be flippant. This is how it seemed to me, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t knock me off my feet. Why spend…
Read More…ven if the company offered higher wages to its employees to purchase insurance through the ACA’s exchanges, it would still pay less than offering a plan. Although Chief Justice John Roberts asked whether offering health insurance to its employees was part of Hobby Lobby’s religious commitment, other justices were skeptical. Ginsburg shot back that “provision of health care is not a religious tenet,” and Kagan distinguished between “wanting to be…
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…travel vouchers from a friendly customer service agent and apologized for inconveniencing her. “It’s no one’s fault,” I told Emmie. JetBlue wasn’t the kind of thing that we could call a “motherfucker.” It was incapable of the act—too abstract to be blamed or cursed. Recent findings in cognitive psychology indicate that we blame at an individual level, using mental systems adapted for life in small groups. It is psychologically difficult to blame l…
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…insurgents, a stunningly beautiful former actress with a charismatic presence but no experience in institutional leadership and not a single worthwhile original sermon to her name. Dana’s narration ends on rather a sour note, as she chronicles the multiple setbacks that the AUUCC suffers almost immediately following the installation of the flashy new minister. The place literally starts to fall apart. One picks up a slight dash of “I told you so”…
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…many Christians vilify protests enacted by the bodies of brown people who inconvenience and disrupt their lives, these same Christians are recipients of a message of good news that disrupted an ancient empire, resulting in the death of a brown savior at the hands of the state—a protest that, we believe, culminated not in death, but in the resurrection of God. The heart of the Christian faith is the ultimate act of protest. The person and work of J…
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…asant smiles with his neighbor, President Raul Castro. If baseball can re-enchant our frenetic lives with a temporal frame that encourages deep reflection on the “blessings” of the American experience, what happens when the sport symbolically mediates an encounter with a country that supposedly fosters a very different way of life? Chris Archer, a 28-year-old pitcher for the Tampa Bay Rays, and most voluble spokesman for this round of baseball dip…
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…inghouse. The decision to make the telecast of the session public was announced after Ordain Women requested and was denied tickets in September. Although some media outlets referred to the action as a protest, Kelly, an international human rights attorney from Washington, D.C., said it should be more accurately understood as a conversation. “There isn’t a clear way to reach the prophet or the leaders. We can’t simply call them up and ask them to…
Read More…appearances at three churches over the weekend, and an election day appearance at a Baptist church in Orlando that is serving as a polling place. But three Florida pastors listed as members of the coalition tell me that they knew nothing about it, had not been contacted by the campaign, and had never agreed to serve in that capacity. On Sunday, Pastor Scrivner Damon of New Life Community Church in North Palm Beach, who was listed on the January 28…
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