Religion Dispatches
…gnum’s performance in October, a series of book trailers began circulating online for Shalom Auslander’s first novel, Hope: A Tragedy. In each of three short films, Auslander asks well-known bookish friends—including Ira Glass, John Hodgeman, and Sara Vowell—a pointed question: Should another Holocaust occur, would they hide the novelist and his family? Auslander has said in recent interviews that the idea for these videos developed during a conve…
Read More…id Shuster) to discuss the birth control coverage issue. There is no video online, but the transcript is. The key point: SHUSTER: When it comes down to it, though, how close does this mandate, in fact, violate — or get to violating — the First Amendment, as Speaker Boehner and Republicans are claiming? POSNER: It does not violate the First Amendment. The bishops are misrepresenting a legal issue in order to create a political issue. There are 28 s…
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…as clues to a telos, however twisted. Holmes seems to have left behind no online fingerprint aside from a cryptic message on an adult dating website. And instead of a note or manifesto, as in the case of the Unabomber, he left a booby-trapped death chamber for anyone who attempted to enter his apartment and for those living in his building. More destruction to “explain” destruction leaves nothing in his wake. Rather than attributing Holmes’ and t…
Read More…at’s brought Occupy Catholics together as a group around the country, both online and in person, is the shared sense that the Occupy movement’s message speaks to the heart of our faith.” But back to electoral politics. Democratic “faith” strategists have jumped on Ryan over his affection for Ayn Rand, criticizing him because she was an atheist—a wrongheaded move that demonized atheism rather than the cruelty of Randian economics. (A year later, Ry…
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…cking Victims Protection Act start to fall apart. At The Society Pages, an online social science project, sociologist Kari Lerum documents the furor over the approach evangelicals have taken in framing the new abolitionist movement. She cites Melissa Ditmore, who argues in the social-justice-oriented magazine New Internationalist that “too often anti-trafficking has become anti-sex work.” Arwyn Jackson is amazed that the work she does has become s…
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…anta Barbara, Schneider began his editing career at Killing the Buddha, an online religion magazine. As a writer, Schneider has brought a clear-eyed enthusiasm to his commentary on the Occupy movement for The Nation, Harper’s, and The New York Times. He has also written about the largesse of the Templeton Foundation and profiled the anthropologist Gabriella Coleman for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Schneider’s “The Biblical Circus of William…
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…nerally kept a low profile (being too outspoken about the situation in the country could have put my visa in jeopardy), but once I returned to the U.S. in 2002 I felt an obligation to speak out, especially as I saw our nation sliding swiftly in the direction of militarism, jingoism, and autocracy. I also was troubled by the way many Buddhists, while speaking eloquently about compassion, viewed the Dharma essentially as a path to inner peace and tr…
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…has not widely been realized. A review of research on political engagement online by Jennifer Brundidge and Ronald E. Rice, for instance, suggests that access to diverse viewpoints and richer information on the internet tends primarily to benefit those of higher socioeconomic status, allowing deeper insight into the political Other without necessarily changing minds. Internet practice among those at lower socioeconomic levels, on the other hand, t…
Read More…ers’ Daughters. If you watched episode three last night—or if you watch it online here now—you could count on being caught up within a few minutes: Olivia, from California, is a former party girl turned pious teen mom who has just learned the paternity of her daughter Eden. Taylor, from Illinois, finds it difficult to integrate her church persona (and her pastor father’s strict rules) with her desire to party, date, and wear sexy clothes. And Kolb…
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…the person they love. Not surprisingly, my small gesture sparked a bit of online controversy. Because my Facebook friends mirror the various chapters of my life, they also represent various constituencies: Southern Baptists from Tennessee, evangelicals from Nebraska, and progressive Christians from Chicago. In fact, my wall sometimes feels like a mashup of Bill Gaither, Rob Bell, and Amanda Palmer—a quality I liken to our wonderfully pluralistic…
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