Religion Dispatches
…—in any case not worshipful. Is this just a modern twist on blasphemy, the latest development in the long history of iconoloclasm? Not really. There is a considerable pedigree for this anti-devotional attitude, starting, of course, with the Book of Job. I’m not referring to Job himself, who, after quarreling with God and questioning his justice, finally submits to the will and the wisdom of the deity. Rather, I am referring to Job’s wife, who, wit…
Read More…s a part of an ongoing intra-conservative battle over Islamophobia. In his latest post at National Review, Schmitz writes, logically dismantling Yerushalmi’s panic: It remains the case that anti-sharia activists have identified a grand total of seven cases in 35 years in which American courts have allegedly enforced sharia or other foreign-law based judgments. In none of them were the serious injustices that advocates of anti-sharia laws typically…
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…f too many apostles of the Revolutionary “Rights of Man.” If I mySelf am a promoter of human rights, then what have I made of the Other who opposes me? The Cold War was, for Lévi-Strauss, simply the latest instantiation of a perennial, tragic human error. Still, this restless traveler and gorgeous stylist insisted that neither resignationism nor monasticism were credible modern options: if there is no New World, then there is no place to which one…
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…to beliefs prescribing faith healing only; anti-LGBTQ conversion therapy; promotion of Christianity in public schools; and the lack of sensible regulation of homeschooling are all singled out for attention. As the report states, “unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, the bulk of negative legislation sought by Christian nationalists, such as those behind Project Blitz, targets schools and youth.” Indeed, as anyone who has spent any amount of time in…
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…he languid, almost unbearable restraint of the music, particularly on this latest recording, constantly strains against the mythically dark stories of the characters’ individual lives. The understated, even mannered, songs tell hyperbolic character tales. In “Tennessee,” a girl-gone-wrong song, a gentle guitar and swaying melody gives voice to a character who learned to sing hosannas on my knees, was corrupted by the feel of whiskers on her cheek,…
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…ed attention. 6) Use social media. The UU media team took advantage of the latest in social media. Participants posted on Facebook and YouTube. They tweeted. They took photos and videos. The mass text alerts told people where to go and kept folks abreast of breaking news. 7) Ask for personal engagement and sacrifice. The UUA made a courageous and bold ask of supporters. People were asked to get to Phoenix in July and consider getting arrested. App…
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…mins, who have unified the country of Gilboa from, as his queen put in the latest episode, “a collection of Stone Age tribes.” Gilboa is constantly at war with its sworn enemy, Gath, whose military might is shown through its line of invincible tanks known as Goliaths. Just as King Silas is dedicating the newly built capital of Shiloh, a fresh confrontation erupts with Gath in which a farm boy turned soldier, David Shepherd, saves the king’s son, J…
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S-Town, the latest multi-episode story from the creators of Serial and This American Life, begins with the promise of a true-crime investigation, descends quickly into quirky southern gothic, then stabs—in its final hour—at religion, complete with a unique “church,” its rituals, and its bloody sacraments . [Spoilers ahead…!] The series centers around John B. McLemore, a clock-maker and clock-restorer, dog-fosterer and possible gold-hoarder, a pol…
Read MoreIn the latest development in the Little Sisters of the Poor’s lawsuit challenging, under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the contraception benefit coverage under the Affordable Care Act, the government today filed its brief in the Supreme Court. To recap briefly: in a flurry of activity at the end of the year, just before the regulations went into effect January 1, a district court in Colorado denied the Little Sisters’ motion for a prelim…
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…rmons’ “weird” beliefs is political. Mormons are the last (or at least the latest) religious “other” to confront the heart of American politics, to deem themselves American enough to ascend to the presidency. Mormon scholar Newell Bringhurst told me recently that that the current public debates over Mormonism reminds him very much of the debate over Kennedy’s Catholicism in 1960. “Would Kennedy take orders from the Vatican?” many leaders from the…
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