Religion Dispatches
…eceived a link to an essay Rabbi Gordis published on Commentary magazine’s website mostly responding to those who wrote critical responses to his critique of Beinart. I did not write a critical response to Gordis. In fact, I do not think I have ever mentioned Gordis in anything I have ever published. As I read his essay I noticed that Rabbi Gordis had reproduced my private messages to him, using them as a source of critique. I was not asked permis…
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…from this experience. From what I could observe at the conference, a large number of Buddhists are attempting to draw upon principles intrinsic to the Dharma to deal with challenges we face in present-day society. Some, with scientific backgrounds, have been applying mindfulness and meditation practices to alleviate stress and psychological disturbances; others are using the Dharma to aid conflict resolution and still others are helping prisoners…
Read More…bigotry called Faith Shared: Uniting in Prayer and Understanding. From its website: This project will create opportunities across the United States for faith communities to strengthen ties with each other. We will counter the misperception, including in the Arab and Muslim worlds, that the United States is a nation defined by the widely covered images of the marginal few who would burn a Qur’an, rather than by a proud and longstanding tradition of…
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…wanted to avoid a “premature revolutionary situation.” Writing at North’s website, his obituarist, Craig Bulkeley, a minister in the schismatic Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), stated that North believed, “God’s kingdom would not likely come in a single generation. Nor would it come from some sudden political takeover, a centralized government, or vigilante violence. It would not come from the top down. But it would come. It would come gradu…
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…his issue, the group has publicly defended their call to massacre on their website: “In order to show that Islam absolutely does not allow this situation, we have shared this hadith, mentioned also in [hadith scholars] Tirmidhi and Abu Dawood: “If you see someone engaged in the dirty business of the tribe of Lot, kill the doer and the done both!” Our wish is to learn the attitude Islam demands from us in light of the Qu’ran and the Sunnah, instead…
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…y deny belief in the supernatural. One of the FAQs on the Satanic Temple’s website asks, “Do you worship Satan?” Their reply: “No, nor do we believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural.” As a follow up, a subsequent question clarifies, “If you do not believe in the supernatural, how is TST a religion?” They provide an emphatic response that encourages us to shift the way we think about religion and, accordingly, about secularization: The…
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…that guide what many would assume, but which is nowhere stated on the CPG website or in the annual report, are socially responsible investing practices. Tweeted cries to “divest now” from Bain may, at the end of the day, be misdirected. But they nonetheless raise important questions to which both the Episcopal Church and its financial affiliate, Church Pension Group, should be quick to respond. Likewise, it seems that church members at large woul…
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…inforced the notion of a benevolent cultural elite,” as the St. Louis city website puts it. The organization still runs a debutante ball where men of high society display their daughters to one another once they come of age. “The preeminent formal gala for introducing young ladies,” as the Veiled Prophet Organization puts it. The gala gives the young women a chance to feel like princesses, guarded by men made up in Orientalist drag as “Bengal Lanc…
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…bs in the United States. So obviously, it creates an anxiety for a certain number of gays.” A Foreign Policy story reported that, in spite of a public relations offensive distancing itself from its anti-Semitic and fascist-sympathizing past, the National Front, “at its highest levels, is awash with Hitler admirers and Holocaust-denying far-right nationalists, including within Marine Le Pen’s inner circle, who could well be poised to work at the Él…
Read More…It certainly does. But this website dedicated to the suckage does not. How can you not like a site that promises to “frustrate, educate and motivate the church to communicate, with uncompromising clarity, the truth of Jesus Christ”? Even if you can, go check out their redesign. They deserve it, and you’ll feel good about it….
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