Religion Dispatches
…wax a little melancholy as the ending of this auspicious month approaches. Today, I returned to my solitary suhur, then walked beneath the canopy of trees toward the mosque for morning prayer and muraqabah, or meditation. The stars were still shining like brilliant diamonds in the deep dark sky. I did search for a glimpse of the moon, so I could check our progress toward the final day, but alas, he was not visible between the tall trees. Or perhap…
Read More…and 2012. I loathe to say this, but what if the 1984 massacre had happened today? Could the ruthless terror unleashed on innocent Sikhs have been curtailed before it became a trauma of magnifying proportions that the world continues to remain oblivious to? Could the effects of that trauma have been lessened? Even today it is only a handful of what sociologist Arlene Stein calls ‘memory-workers’ who are using the internet in defining 1984 as a trau…
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Today is Draw Muhammad Day. Created in response to two idiots who reacted to a South Park episode, the event signifies that the right to do something should be seen as a license to do something. The South Park episode focused on the failure of censorship. Comedy Central, like the two buffoons from Revolution Muslim, missed the point and focused on the non-representation of Muhammad, causing the episode to be censored. The response of the supporte…
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…action physically to replace them as inhabitants of the holy land. But who today knows what the Canaanites and Philistines reported about such self-serving Hebrew claims? In their turn, Christians likewise see themselves as superseding Jews as the Chosen People, establishing a New Israel, allegedly justified in doing so by the genius of Christian “fulfillments” of ancient Jewish prophecies, matched only by the uncanny anticipation those Jewish pro…
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…large role in the overall health disparities faced by communities of color today. Women of color have the highest rates of unintended pregnancy, abortion, and maternal mortality, all of which have taken a toll on the psychological, economic, and social vitality of these communities. Moreover, as abortion clinics across the country close due to the conservative attack on abortion rights, women of color are harmed disproportionately. Clinic closings…
Read More…umber 9 in the “Top 50 Books the Have Shaped Evangelicals” by Christianity Today, alongside works by C.S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Francis Schaffer, and Rick Warren. Her influence is well noted in her obituary by Kate Shellnutt at Christianity Today. Through Elliot’s book, evangelicals latched on to the deaths of these five young men, and their story became a galvanizing force for keeping the faith, and perhaps for inspiration to get up and go….
Read More…a jump from 34% in 2004, when the Michigan amendment was approved, to 59% today. For pity’s sake, even most young Republicans now favor marriage equality. As Mary E. Hunt has made clear, Pope Francis’s more compassionate words about gay priests hardly translate into more enlightened Roman Catholic teaching with regard to LGBT equality. But they do tend to move the needle out of a groove of judgment and combativeness that has proved divisive with…
Read More…rying to put the best face on their prejudice. For example, UK’s Christian Today editors are trying to convince people that it’s not bigotry to reserve the word “marriage” for heterosexual couples and call all those “gay marriages” civil partnerships. But being different doesn’t have to mean bad or discriminatory. Relationships can be held in equal regard by the state and society, but accommodated by both differently – a single mother may receive…
Read More…ng to save?” Kumrits asked his friend. “Man, he sounded just like we sound today.” But if you ask them what they are, they really don’t know. And they’re fine with that. They don’t know where they will be spiritually in a year, but they don’t seem very much preoccupied by it. Today, their spirituality comes from the Tao Te Ching. They are dedicated to shedding their possessions. Kumrits lives year round in a camper. The two men are constantly chal…
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…operandi of God and of God’s people in the world. Those who are in Christ today, with Paul, identify with the life-giving and reconciling cross of Christ, validated by God in the resurrection, not as an expression of a violent personality or a conviction that violence can be sacred and salutary, but in the paradoxical belief that in Christ and his cross God was nonviolently reconciling the world to himself and giving to us the ongoing task of non…
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