Religion Dispatches
…ld Reagan first sold the rhetoric of Republican de-regulation and trust in free markets is just that: the death of tomorrow-thinking, under the pressure of the desire for instantaneous and sophomoric gratification. The boys at Enron acted as if there were no tomorrow, quite literally up to the day tomorrow came crashing over their heads. They contented themselves with figuring out how to get theirs and get out before the empty coffers and fictiona…
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…repeating: not all Black people wish to be conscripted into this fight for freedom. Most wish to embrace anonymity, enjoying the mundane things other humans are afforded. Aren’t we in a strange hell then, that asserting the desire to live free from trauma and be seen as a human is considered more of an assault on America’s sacred institutions than, say, murdering a capitol police officer? As perverse as it is, even my aspiration for an ordinary ex…
Read More…, not a religious rights issue, but it gets to one of the complications of free exercise rights. Some areas of law operate vertically, let’s say, since they’re mostly self-referential and one can acquire expertise in them without much reference to other areas of law. But religious rights work horizontally, as they come into interaction, and conflict, with many other categories of law. And it’s impossible to be expert in all types of law, even for…
Read More…es. Lebanese Muslims work predominately as businesspeople in the lucrative Free Trade Zone, one of the largest free trade ports in the world. In the city center, many residents are descendants of West Indian laborers on the Panama Canal throughout the twentieth century. The city has one of the highest rates of poverty in the country. Every year, a group of black Muslims in Colón hosts an event to celebrate Eid-ul-Udha, a holiday that marks the end…
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…me the suffering of the most miserable; So I will know my people’s plight. Free me to pray for others; For you are present in every person. Help me to take responsibility for my own life; So that I can be free at last. Grant me courage to serve others; For in service there is true life. Give me honesty and patience; So that I can work with other workers. Bring forth song and celebration; So that the spirit will be alive among us. Let the spirit fl…
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…e nothing. Like I was a ghost. But it also made me feel giddy, joyful, and free. I could not take my eyes from it. Night after night, I took the Time-Life book to bed with me and I read it until I could read no more. This quiet but transformative introduction to deep time started me off on a terrific three-year-long obsession with dinosaurs and evolution and geology and astronomy. Other encounters with nature had similar effects on me: They made m…
Read More…ed States. But we might remind our European friends that a political arena free from religious concerns is the exception to the global rule. Even among their own “I” nations, while Iceland’s politics may maintain a secular purity, Ireland and Italy are decidedly more complicated cases. Which is all prelude to reflecting on this electoral season’s “pastor wars,” now mercifully in abeyance, but liable to heat up again at any time. Linking one’s poli…
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…merican celebration over President-Elect Obama amounted to, “Free at last, free at last—whoa, whoa, [referring to an image of two men holding hands]—where are you two going?” Tragicomic, indeed. I understand that emotions over the passing of Proposition 8 in California are high. Seeing as my household was among those that opposed the measure, I am personally frustrated with the cultural anxiety, ignorance and/or intolerance that animated the vast…
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…a. The Hitching Post offers three venues for the wedding: a chapel, mostly free of religious symbols but adorned with flowers and foliage; a “Western room,” with cowboy-boot-and-gun decor; and a “Victorian Sitting Room,” which also has flowers and foliage. The ministers will also perform weddings at ski resorts and outdoor locations. They have performed weddings on boats, on horseback, on roller coasters, and in hot air balloons. None of this seem…
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…nto two giant PDF files and put them on the internet. For just anyone. For free. A few hours later, a fully-searchable edition of the CHI started to make the digital rounds. And by Friday, much to our astonishment, the LDS Church published the entire second volume on its own website. (The first volume remains officially restricted to lay clerical leaders.) The buzz among bloggers and web-journalists quickly converged around changes to the section…
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