Religion Dispatches
…e impact on his audience can be considerable; as a woman said to me on the way out: “wow… he really knows a lot.” For substance, Federer presented an entirely sanitized Christianity—a version that he and his political allies don’t actually embrace—in contrast to his ridiculous caricature of Islam and Muhammad. He argued that the only way to characterize Christianity is to “look at Jesus.” From this directive, he presented only the “turn-the-other-…
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…r with a lot of controversies surrounding monuments. I’m interested in the way monuments are used to inscribe particular histories and ideas of polity onto the land. I’m also interested in the way rituals are used to construct and change those meanings. The connection between ritual, sacred space, and narrative runs through a lot of my work. In my next book I plan to look at some of the controversies surrounding monuments in America in order to ex…
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…t politically organized. Many, in fact, were not politically active; large numbers were not even registered to vote. But Weyrich saw an opportunity, and by his own account he spent years trying to mobilize evangelicals politically. I met Weyrich only once, at an improbable gathering of religious right types in Washington DC, late in 1990 (improbable because I was clearly out of place in a room full of people like Weyrich, Ralph Reed, Richard Land,…
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…vilege, the FFRF suit seems quite appropriate. But what if there’s another way to deal with this issue…a way for congregations to endorse candidates—but in a constitutional way? It turns out there is one: give congregations the option to change their tax status, from charitable 501(c)(3) to social welfare 501(c)(4) organization. After all, Congress permits social welfare organizations to endorse candidates and keep their tax exemptions, if they ca…
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…the current cacophonic repetition of the word, “economy.” Either way, I always thought the word “debt” was a spiritual word. In the Lord’s Prayer we pray for the forgiveness of our debts, as we forgive our debtors. I know some congregations say “trespasses” and others say “sins.” Where I come from, we always said “debts.” It meant something different from what the landlord did when he knocked on our door, asking for the rent. He wanted money. The…
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…e Church elites told no one, for they were afraid. But the word got out anyway; such a word always does. And there is assuredly a rising after a falling, if you are serious about tragedy, generating a hope that is sustained not just in the face of tragedy, but actually through tragedy, if you have the courage to face it squarely. Albrecht Dürer’s famous 1528 painting of “The Four Apostles” (see above) is a diptych that boasts serene images of John…
Read More…rld Report, and USA Today. This is all brilliant in its quiet, descriptive way. Silk is especially mindful of the ways in which we are bombarded by news and information from the time we wake to the time we retire. He has structured his response by simply walking us through his day, reminding us that we are always (both actively and semi-passively) receiving such information, sometimes to the point of overload. But then I come to the curious final…
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…d on the left, what you see is they’re still sort of being defined in that way as well. It’s just done in a more nuanced way. “There are good Muslims and there are bad Muslims, and we need to get the good Muslims on our side.” What’s the counter-rhetoric you would want to see? We need to talk about Muslims as we do about any other group. They can’t always just be defined, or understood, or discussed in terms of terrorism. We need to individualize…
Read More…ple watching you want. But I digress.) Here are four life lessons I took away from Episode Two, which you can watch here. 1. Responding to an intrusive question with another question can be a great way to deflect the intrusive questioner. One of the droller parts of last night’s episode is hearing the Koloff family talk about “boundaries.” By “boundaries,” they mean “things you won’t do sexually.” Do you detect the potential for humor here? Beca…
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…Rosemary Radford Ruether, a founding mother of feminist theology, passed away on May 21 at age 85, just a day after Cordileone’s announcement. Ruether lived through this fraught both/and scenario for most of her scholar-activist career. No stranger to dissent, Ruether publicly supported legal abortion as well as other reproductive health services that the Vatican considers unlawful, such as contraception use for preventing HIV and AIDS. Her decad…
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