find cheap airline tickets anywhere 3/31 – 4/7 phone number 1-800-299-7264 | Search Results | Religion Dispatches

Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired

By Rachel Wagner

…e 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…

Power Up: Turn Off the Cell Phone

By Daniel Schultz

…ere my wife got to in Kohl’s. But it seems to me that focusing on the micro-trend of rich people opting out of the 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 Ami…

“Saints Are Only Human”: Leaving the Church, But Heeding this Pope’s Lessons

By Elizabeth Colmant Estes

…earing wafers were released in our midst. An assistant who carried a yellow-and-white umbrella accompanied each. The missalette sternly warned against taking communion across denominational borders. I instant-messaged someone in my denomination to find out the status of communion between Reformed churches like mine and the Catholic church. “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” he kindly replied. “Wish I were there.” I turned to a Georgetown University undergra…

We Went Through Amoris Laetitia Section by Section So You Wouldn’t Have To

By Anthony Adams

…sinful unions into sacramental marriages. This obviously precludes any nice-nice making for same-sex couples because that door to sacramental marriage remains closed ever more firmly by dint of this document. In Section 300 Francis even admits that there is nothing new in this Exhortation and that we shouldn’t have expected any rule changes from him or his bishops. After all, there’s only so much a pope can do, as Patti Miller explains on RD. At t…

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

By Michael Schulson

…ss groups. “…they want spiritual goods, but within the protective, customer-is-in-charge framework of commercial consumption.” Wilson, the Buddhism scholar, argues that this approach to spirituality serves a market in which people “want the benefits of religion, but not the downsides of religion.” “They want the meditation practice, on demand, to provide them with health, and peace, and calmness,” Wilson told The Cubit. “But they don’t want the su…

Can Expelled Teach Us a Thing or Two?

By Arri Eisen

…f an Intelligence or a Creator, and most similar ideas of religion, are non-falsifiable, non-testable, in the way that any scientific idea must be. I argue to introduce alternate ideas in the science classroom, but in a different way. And here is where I part company with most of my colleagues who say, ‘Creationism and intelligent design belong in history or religion class, but in my classroom I only teach science. Besides, I’ve got too much infor…

Swift-Boat Veterans of American Jewry Charge Anti-Semitism at Occupy Wall Street

By Jay Michaelson

…al-financial interest. Add the word “Jewish” in there, and you’ve got world-zionist-conspiracy antisemitism, circa 1880-1945. So in a way, the couple of bigots at Zuccotti Park are just connecting the dots between Occupy’s agenda and their own. The main difference, of course, is that Occupy’s target is real, whereas the antisemite’s is a fantasy. Which is a pretty big difference. All this would be insignificant were it not for the significant fina…

Mitt Romney’s Prosperity Gospel

By Peter Laarman

… no longer the world’s most mathematically-inclined nation. We’re a scratch-to-win nation. We’re a roll-the-dice people. And our god is that God: the one who makes water flow from the rock (Numbers 20:11); who surprises us all the time by blessing us in the least likely circumstances. Mr. President: You need to understand this. You need to work with this, but very, very carefully. Because, like it or not, the endgame in this election is going to b…

Francis Visits the Church that John Paul Broke

By Patricia Miller

…vatives question Francis’ legitimacy, like my conservative Catholic brother-in-law who recently told me: “He’s not my pope.” While many Catholics rejected the church’s teaching on birth control because it didn’t align with either their own sense of morality or the realities of their lives, Republican-leaning Catholics have been politically conditioned to ignore Francis’ message on everything from climate change to economics. Francis faces another…

What a Turn-of-the-Century Anti-Abortion and Contraception Crusader Reveals About GOP Efforts to Ban Abortion Pills by Mail

By Steven K. Green

…items within their borders (as is already the case federally with lottery tickets). A Republican-controlled Congress could then impose a nationwide ban on the mailing of abortion pills or certain contraceptives. (Republican-controlled state legislatures have already demonstrated a willingness to enact questionable legislation for nothing more than its intimidation factor.) Which brings us back to Anthony Comstock. In 1878, the Supreme Court uphel…