Religion Dispatches
…demann is one the leading experts on Jerusalem and has long worked towards promoting agreement on the status of Jerusalem as part of a peace accord between Israelis and Palestinians. We also discussed the current situation in Silwan, which Seidemann calls a “stain on Israeli democracy,” and what happened when Seidemann gave leading Republicans a tour of the city. And, of course, chickenshit. For more on the Temple Mount, read Larry Derfner at 972….
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…thin Orthodoxy arguing for the ordination of women, among them Orthodox rebbetzin Blu Greenberg, who’s been outspoken on the need for Orthodox women’s ordination since the 1980s. Though Orthodox gender rules preclude women leading mixed-gender worship, the role of rabbi includes many other functions which women can perform even within an Orthodox framework—and there’s nothing in halakha (Jewish law) which explicitly prohibits women’s ordination. A…
Read More…e in the face of violence directed at religious minorities. Meanwhile, at least since last summer’s “elevatorgate”, outspoken atheist feminists describe continued, aggressive harassment from men in the atheist community. In response some atheists have broken off and created “Atheism Plus” which aims to make space for women, people of color, and other marginalized groups within an atheist movement that’s historically white and male. The idea crysta…
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…people in the first two decades [of life] very rarely die of cancer or diabetes. They die of risk-taking and suicide, things like that. And there’s nothing in the medical sciences as robust and protective against the most serious forms of suffering and risk as a personal spirituality. There’s the term “spirituality,” as we use in ordinary conversation, which is fairly vague. But for research, you need to have the term locked down. How does our da…
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…d coming of Christ, the article leaves the reader with the sense that, at least for a time, many of Jang’s followers did believe it. Additionally, the CT article points out that the connections between Jang and the Unification Church go beyond surface similarities, noting that Jang taught at a UC seminary for 9 years (1989-1998), though in later interviews Jang claimed to be infiltrating the seminary with orthodox theology. With Jang’s credibility…
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…s spate of apologies for America’s past behavior toward Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. But what he means is that his predecessor did wrong; it remains to be seen whether he finds himself capable of being culpable too. Save for the help of the Yes Men, the team of pranksters who apologized on the BBC for Dow Chemical’s role in the 1984 industrial disaster in Bhopal, corporate repentance has been even rarer. Apology is bad for business,…
Read More…By 2:30 we were soaked to the skin by a “sudden” thunderstorm headed northeast to the Hopi reservation. I remembered it was the day of the Hopi Snake dance which is most often cited as a “rain dance.” Snakes and rain are almost universal partners occurring in cultures from Eastern Europe to Chumash of Southern California. I’ve seen a lot of Chumash rock art and at almost every spring there is a painted figure with the familiar crosshatched markin…
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…w to terrorism. The earliest terrorist groups in Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe were mostly secular nationalists. The most dangerous decade in terrorism, the 1970s, was dominated by groups like Weather Underground, the Japanese Red Army, and the Marxist Fadai’yan. In fact, until 2000, the majority of suicide bombings were carried out by the enthno-Marxist Tamil Tigers. Yet, regardless of the differing ideologies, the consistent…
Read More…uman rights of transgender persons— including right to self determination, freedom of movement and freedom of expression—but these laws are also open to abuse. In this case, although the women were asleep while they were arrested in their hotel rooms, they are still being investigated under Section 28. Justice for Sisters criticized “dehumanizing” media coverage of the arrests. India: Legislature Rejects Decriminalization, UN Official Wants Court…
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…e with the idea of a society dominated by white Christians. The comparison between Tarrant and the Norwegian terrorist Andres Breivik is relevant for a number of reasons. Like Breivik, Tarrant was part of a wider subculture of hatred. He likely thought of himself not as a terrorist but as a soldier in a great and hidden war, carrying out a mission on behalf of an imagined constituency of supporters. Like Breivik, he dressed up in military garb wit…
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