Religion Dispatches
…f Biblical Hebrew. Yael is the co-founder and director of NYU’s Center for Spiritual Life and runs the Center with the same spiritual inclusiveness she personally espouses. In a recent article for Inquiring Mind, Shy elaborates on her dual Jewish-Buddhist practice. “I often ask myself, ‘Is it possible to engage in a non-superficial way, in two rich spiritual traditions?’ So, far the answer is a resounding yes!” Yael sees a kind of universality in…
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…eran or Presbyterian was. Now most people who still believe with a gracing Spirit don’t really care what they are in the first place. That applies unless you are the type of conservative Christian who has a theology of blame and shame or what I call “punishmentalism.” Then you still want to “get it right.” The mainlines are the old lines, and the evangelicals’ dogmatism will soon be there as well. Gratia always escapes religious tendrils and chain…
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…o religion and says nothing about a baby in a manger—but it does promote a spirit of giving and care for others that can be embraced by almost anyone. The point here is that the Puritan suppression of Christmas created a vacuum, and when Christmas re-emerged and flourished in the 1800s its new form had less of a religious emphasis and was centered more on family and generosity. Christians could embrace those themes gladly, as very consistent with…
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…this prophetic mold. Let me end this by saying that I am not holding my breath. I do not expect a radical religious voice to suddenly emerge in this way. The signs of near-complete religious domestication are everywhere. Yet I also believe that the Holy Spirit can descend at even the most unexpected times. And if even a small fraction of US religious leaders were to catch this particular spirit, I have no doubt that all kinds of holy hell would b…
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…Senator Maria Silva, a collaborator with the late Chico Mendes (murdered in 1988 by ranchers who opposed his efforts to organize rubber tappers), spoke convincingly of the need for sustainable development and the protection of a biodiverse Amazon. She was the first rubber tapper elected to the Brazilian senate, and served as Minister for the Environment from 2003-2008. Hearing her touch on liberation theology provided a ray of hope that what we ar…
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…s own contributions to the formation of “movement” Christianity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Then he dropped out, turned his back on that kind of power and glory. He produced low-budget movies for a time, wrote some decent autobiographical fiction, and finally returned to writing about the thing he knows best: the damage wrought by hard, doctrinal religion. One senses from this book that Schaeffer is at last free of the need to strap on his…
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…f the pandemic that’s killed 710,000 of our friends, brothers, sisters, and parents—more Americans than all our wars combined—we need to recover that spirit of 1776. Mandatory vaccination now. Religious exemptions be damned….
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…athleen Medwick, Teresa of Avila: The Progress of a Soul (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), pps. 38-39. 12Stephen Prothero, American Jesus, ibid., p. 144. 13Quoted in Prothero, ibid., p. 118. 14 Quoted in Prothero, ibid….
Read More…ely to their gay and lesbian (and transgender) members and have seen God’s spirit move in, through and around their lives. They have not accepted gay and lesbian people because it’s the path of least resistance, as Mohler implies. Some of those denominations have paid a steep price, losing members and entire congregations because of these decisions. Instead, they have done it because they have felt the Holy Spirit whisper to them that is it is the…
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…e half-century they’ve been playing together can be seen to exemplify this spirit of love for one another in community. “Friend of the Devil,” co-written by Jerry Garcia and the band’s longtime lyricist (and official fifth member) Robert Hunter, is a good example. We are invited to empathize with the outlaw who is running from the sheriff and established society: “Got two reasons why I cry away this lonely night. The first one’s named sweet Anne M…
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