Religion Dispatches
…surrecting and playing with the dead. While I have a predilection for the macabre generally, and tend to be a little too preoccupied with the dead specifically, I am not opposed to the celebratory, harmless Halloween activities associated with dressing up in outlandish costumes, knocking on strangers’ doors, and consuming lots and lots and lots of candy. Perhaps at some subterranean, unconscious societal level, as we get closer to the day of elect…
Read More…re than 40 years, the conservative movement is rejoicing over what it is characterizing as a “new” American revolution — a new tea party, if you will — emerging out of Massachusetts. The geography is rife with symbolism: the first shots of the 2010 revolution fired in the heart of blue America, potentially killing Kennedy’s life work and setting the stage for a Republican resurgence in New England, of all places. But what pro-life activists aren’t…
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…sing but solid defeat by Doug Jones, Roy Moore refused to concede. Even in Alabama, ground zero for voter suppression, mysteriously broken voting machines in poor black neighborhoods, and every attempt to keep citizens likely to vote blue from exercising that right, old fashioned democracy prevailed. Doug Jones eked out a narrow victory, and Judge Roy Moore lost fair and square. But he didn’t concede. Moore’s short non-concession speech late Tuesd…
Read More…ike Doctors without Borders face difficulties landing their planes, Travolta has apparently “arranged for a plane to take down some volunteer ministers and some supplies and some medics.” Travolta is not the only Scientologist who is clear about the need to provide services to Haiti. According to a press release issued by the Church of Scientology, “Teams of Scientology Volunteer Ministers from throughout the U.S., Mexico, Europe and elsewhere wil…
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…elf-identify with no religion. In order to pursue that path, we have to do away with one of the most obfuscating, irritating, and limiting words bandied about by too many in public discourse: faith and faith communities. In the land of no religion, faith, as a domesticated catchword for Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus of every stripe and strand, is out the window. When faith, affiliation and tradition no longer apply, the possibili…
Read More…ersion therapy on Monday. Today, NPR’s ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos, analyzed Monday’s story in light of the negative reaction from listeners. Briefly, Alix Spiegel interviewed Rich Wyler, founder of Journey into Manhood, and Peterson Toscano, a man who went spent 17 years in an unsuccessful effort to change his orientation. Schumacher-Matos correctly points out that much of the negative reaction centered on the presentation of Wyler and Tos…
Read More…rmal encyclicals and other documents that leave the permanent mark of his papacy on the church. One could argue, therefore, that the lack of alignment between the priorities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Francis wasn’t a willful rejection of the pope’s agenda, but more of a wait-and-see attitude of exactly what that agenda was and how it could be implemented in concrete detail. But the jig is up. Its been nearly three years. The p…
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…n which play-by-plays of the Transfiguration of Jesus and the Binding of Isaac are thoroughly detailed and not declare it either pedantic or preachy is a deep dissonance indeed. Sufjan Stevens plays like, seven hundred instruments. He composes for ballets. The dude likes his details. Why couldn’t critics just let Sufjan Stevens bear prophetic witness? Perhaps it’s that the aftertaste of the aforementioned politicized religious right is still too b…
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…d most influential Orthodox organizations, the Rabbinical Council of America and the Orthodox Union, co-sponsored America’s first National Jewish Child Abuse Prevention Week. There’s nothing to suggest that sexual abuse is any more or less prevalent in the Orthodox community than anywhere else; but there are a number of peculiarities to Orthodox Jewish life that have made the reporting of abuse less common than in society at large. “I think the su…
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…nder the wire for Holy Week, the traditional season of religiously-themed magazine covers, the new pontiff is sure to be seen in a gleaming soutane, his arms outstretched, suitable for framing within the red border that once announced a moment the world would stop to notice. In their former ubiquity, their former authority, the former certainty of the futures of their respective empires, the pope and Time seem made for each other. The first time T…
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