Religion Dispatches
…l Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, even wondered in an article on his Web site why there was “no one to step between (Rutgers student) Tyler Clementi and that bridge.” The death of Clementi and five other kids, who were either gay or perceived as such, would be a wonderful opportunity for Mohler to show some real compassion, or perhaps even cop to Christianity’s culpability in their deaths; but he makes no such effort as he writes about the suici…
Read More…en who were charged with “offending public morals” for eating on their job site during Ramadan. By declining to hear an appeal, the US Supreme Court effectively upheld a ban on religious Christmas carols in a New Jersey school district. In Germany, a group of Catholics want to take the Santa out of Christmas. They want to replace the consumerist Claus with the selfless St. Nicholas. Druidry is now recognized as a religion by Great Britain. That on…
Read More
…omes for change. The mass and the eucharist simply don’t make sense as the site for holding a boycott. It runs the risk of directing one’s protest against the church’s sacraments, rather than against the human beings who mishandle them. More urgently (and less theologically), however, is what some people’s leaving means for those of us who stay. Ex- or lapsed Catholics are everywhere, often well-meaning and progressive. But where does their absenc…
Read More…m I so excited by it)? Let me count the ways: It’s true. Check the Holland site for the citations, which are difficult to refute. Lou Engle has horrible politics. Brownback should have his judgment questioned for hanging around with him. More to the point, whether you like it or not, hanging a bigoted person around your opponent’s neck is an accepted and efficient political tactic. Fred Phelps has even more horrible politics. More to the point, he…
Read More…y I cannot do that until the public and intellectuals alike stop offering up essentialist visions of cultural products like yoga. Resisting the siren call of orthodoxy to claim a site of origin or authenticity is dangerous—it destabilizes our own sense of authority—yet it holds the possibility of empowerment….
Read More
…ols operate with surprising inefficiency, with students scoring the lowest numbers in Europe despite having four times as many teachers as Europe’s highest ranked system, in Finland. There are there separate government owned defense corporations. As for Greek health care, it is unclear whether waste or outright theft by state employees is the greater drain on a hopelessly overburdened system. And then there are the pensions: all men who work in p…
Read More…antly calls the center Cordoba House, the same day Park51 revamped its Web site, and one of principals says he wants to sell. Apparently no one told him that in his absence the Cordoba House name was dropped in favor of Park51. Either he is being kept out of the information loop or there is a leadership struggle happening within the team. The only other alternative is that he really is just clueless, as his wife constantly referred to the project…
Read More
…g the conversation about feminisms in Islam that the negativity on the Web site might not give the full impression. That entry was tweeted and re-tweeted around the world. But for some respondents, my failure to succumb to their negativity in my choice both to be Muslim and to be feminist (as in Islamic feminist not secular) was contestable. Since mine is a choice: both my Islam and my feminism, I am not in need of some one else’s definition nor d…
Read More…in the dessert, coincidentally right there in Makkah so we can visit this site on our pilgrimage. Of course it wasn’t Makkah yet, but that’s another story. Now, here’s my favorite part. Hajar asks her baby daddy, well what will we do out here in the desert? And he looks and away, “God will provide.” Well thank you very much, old man—that’s just what I will do then, rely on God. So he walks off and leaves them; leaves a woman and her child, his ch…
Read More…est brother to it just last year). When I got the news, during the fast, a number of my friends told me just go ahead and stop fasting to address it. But, I thought if I do not get on top of it, this may be my last Ramadan; and I just wanted to finish what I had started. I’m glad I did, but here’s the thing. To stabilize the blood sugar, pre-diabetics and diabetics have to eat smaller meals dispersed through out the day. I started it yesterday but…
Read More