Religion Dispatches
…y we think about, and talk about, religion today… as a not-so-new century readies the celebrations for its ten-year-old birthday. Religion is back…again The tempting place to begin is with what has almost become a twenty-first century truism: that in this new century, religion was decidedly “back.” Just one year into this new century, religion of a certain sort literally exploded across the brainscape of a wondering and worried world. The Septemb…
Read More…ption were selfish, rejecting the will of God that they be mothers and instead pursuing their own pleasure and self-fulfillment, helped alienate a generation (or two) of Catholic women from the church. Not only were women who used contraception selfish harlots, but the very use of contraception was leading them to have abortions: It may be that many people use contraception with a view to excluding the subsequent temptation of abortion. But the ne…
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…Reporter said: Smith, who conducts Everflowing educational programs that teach touch skills as an integral component of end of life care, is revered as one of the first people to regularly massage those living with AIDS. She began her outreach in 1983, when she started going room to room offering her touch to patients on San Francisco General Hospital’s Ward 5A (then the major AIDS ward in the city). Even before that, in April 1982, she approache…
Read More…63) knocked prayer and state-sponsored religious activities such as Bible readings out of our public schools for good, our schools must have been idyllic places, largely free from the type and extent of violence we see today. Sure, there were the occasional schoolyard fights, but those are a far cry from the premeditated, high-fatality attacks that are seemingly becoming all too common these days. God was allowed in our schools, and the safety of…
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…For many Americans the mention of Marley conjures the image of flashing dreadlocks, ganja smoke, and reggae’s hypnotic beat—all of which are pleasant enough. And yet, the politics of consumer capitalism and muckraking media have tainted the remembrance of a potent religious and social activist (as it has also threatened, albeit to a far lesser degree, the memory of MLK). Black Americans of Caribbean lineage, however, recognize this other Bob Marl…
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…I am attending Beverly Hills High School with more than 1,000 students in each grade. The social landscape at Beverly Hills High School in the 1990s was insular and segregated. People from the same ethnic background tended to be friends only with each other and there was very little mixing between social groups. Most high school friendships had developed years earlier in elementary school, so the cliques were already established, and I was an out…
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…f the futures of their respective empires, the pope and Time seem made for each other. The first time Time put a pope on its cover—June 16, 1924—it tried to split the difference between the era’s rampant anti-Catholicism and the “Great Man” narratives that were then its stock and trade. Beneath an illustration depicting Pope Pius XI as bespectacled, human, and approachable (literally soft around the edges, thanks to the artist’s light touch), ther…
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…nuns, with the nation’s 18,800 parishes boasting an average of two priests each. The sacraments were still a major part of most Catholics’ lives: there were nearly 1 million baptisms and 350,000 Catholic marriages. The controversy over Humanae Vitae ten years earlier had largely subsided; most Catholics used birth control and most priests ignored the issue. The Catholic Church had tried valiantly over the previous decade to make abortion a major p…
Read More…arrived forty years ago could have been left languishing in camps—but instead are productive members of American society who serve our communities as physicians, teachers, government leaders, and officers in our military. They are proof that our nation’s resettlement system works, and that good can come when we choose to be our better selves. Today, as was the case in 1979, religious leaders have set aside their divisions and have stood united in…
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…and topped with a capstone weighing 25,000 pounds. Carved onto the face of each slab is a list of ten precepts for creating a better society, written in eight modern languages. On the four sides of the capstone are written the words, “Let These Be Guidestones to An Age of Reason” in Sanskrit, Babylonian cuneiform, Classical Greek, and Egyptian hieroglyphs. The central column and capstone are also equipped with holes, astronomically aligned so that…
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