Religion Dispatches
…wax a little melancholy as the ending of this auspicious month approaches. Today, I returned to my solitary suhur, then walked beneath the canopy of trees toward the mosque for morning prayer and muraqabah, or meditation. The stars were still shining like brilliant diamonds in the deep dark sky. I did search for a glimpse of the moon, so I could check our progress toward the final day, but alas, he was not visible between the tall trees. Or perhap…
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…eeklies’ born-again fondness for religious authority has not endured until today. Since the explosion of the clergy sex abuse scandals in the media, a curious trend has emerged on the covers of news magazine. In four Time covers—April 1, 2002, November 27, 2006, June 7, 2010, February 25, 2013—the familiar figure of the pope appears, but altered. Unlike the scores of previous covers featuring the Bishop of Rome, the pope now stands either with his…
Read More…elson is doing his best to spread the message through Israel HaYom (Israel Today), a free tabloid that is the country’s must-read news outlet. Adelson told reporters at the Jerusalem gathering that he does not dictate the newspaper’s coverage or editorials, but that both reflect his point of view and that of his close friend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a nation of news junkies, Israel HaYom is trying to steer public opinion to the right…
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…ster will eventually come to the conclusion that engagement with believers today has to be both digital and mobile. Thus, I wasn’t surprised to read about an Anglican priest in Nova Scotia who offered a “grace for gadgets” service over Labor Day weekend during which the faithful had to opportunity to have their smartphones, laptops, and other mobile electronic devices blessed. In a similar vein, earlier this year, a Methodist church in Texas began…
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…long considered quintessential “outsiders” to mainstream American culture, today find themselves at the center of the American zeitgeist. Yet it is the Mormons’ supposed theological weirdness that is the centripetal attraction. As Joanna Brooks has noted in these pages, the New York Times recently featured Harold Bloom’s musings on how a President Romney would govern a country, and a planet, from which he would in the afterlife depart, becoming th…
Read More…S Newsroom reads: “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints regrets today’s decision. California voters have twice been given the opportunity to vote on the definition of marriage in their state and both times have determined that marriage should be recognized as only between a man and a woman. We agree. Marriage between a man and a woman is the bedrock of society. “We recognize that this decision represents only the opening of a vigorous d…
Read More…g to translate Catholic doctrine into public policy, largely foreshadowing today’s debates about the rights of Christians, or any followers of a specific religion, to impose their values on others. “There is a Catholic law on birth control. There is a Catholic law on abortion. I accept the Catholic law. There is no Catholic law on what you have to do about imposing birth control on others,” Cuomo said. After O’Connor called out Ferraro for being a…
Read More…licy circles in North America and Europe and by many academics invested in promoting religious freedom). It is, rather, an inescapably context-bound, polyvalent concept unfolding within divergent histories in differing political orders. This realization has led us to pose a number of crucial questions to those engaged in the promotion of religious freedom as a stable and singular human right. These questions, explored in detail in the PoRF volume…
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…lived partially as Jews, and had some status in the Jewish community. But today’s non-Jewish Jews aren’t identifying as such because they live in Jewish enclaves, but because identifying as “Jewish” has become an asset and fashionable; it’s no longer a liability. The impact this community will have on the Jewish community remains to be seen. *Read more from “Pew and the Jews: ‘So What?’”, an RD special feature on the Pew survey. Like this story?…
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…ncient and oft recycled stories in world cultures. In looking at The Flood today, we participate in thousands of years of meaning-making. We connect ourselves to world literature, to ancient civilizations, and to a perennial story about a cataclysm that changed the world. Long before the Bible was written, The Flood was a blockbuster of the ancient Mesopotamian and Mediterranean worlds. It originated in Sumer over 4000 years ago. New versions were…
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