Religion Dispatches
…film for free on Hulu. Citizens United’s newest project, “The Hope and the Change,” which runs a little over an hour, is a standard rehash of anti-Obama-isms: he promised to unite the country, but stood with Skip Gates and Trayvon Martin. He promised to fix the economy, but he goes on vacation while your house is being foreclosed upon. He’s brought us socialism (health care reform), infringement of religious liberty (ditto), and, the film falsely…
Read More…ore enjoying what is a potential feast of ways to improve the way we do things: (1) collective intelligence is an emergent and apparently powerful property of interacting humans, and (2) it’s much easier to change groups to adjust for the factors that predict higher collective intelligence than it is to change single individuals to improve their intelligence. Think about it with some friends….
Read More…” Elder Packer also reaffirmed opposition to same-sex marriage: “We cannot change; we will not change. We quickly lose our way when we disobey the laws of God. If we do not protect and foster the family, civilization and our liberties must needs perish.” As has been explored here on RD, Mormonism accords a unique theological priority to marriage as a spiritual rite necessary to salvation. In addition to being theologically orthodox, Packer’s messa…
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…new calling as “the space in which there is power to create a reality, to change reality, to have an influence.” In a way, Michaeli invites comparison to Barack Obama: a writer and activist who saw an opening to make good on the promise of social justice and leadership in politics, one who doesn’t scold about inequality, but presents a hopeful vision for a more equitable future. But Michaeli—unlike Obama of the mid-2000s—does not offer up illusio…
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…vealed as we—and our fellow human beings—negotiate experiences of profound change and redirection. There are few life events that represent more of an individual sea-change than a religious conversion or de-conversion. I think the book captures at least glimpses of how much life is in the transitions—and how multi-facted the role of the arts can be in navigating our way to other shores. Is there anything you had to leave out? I left out sex, and h…
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…ossible. For one thing belief is a snapshot of just that day since beliefs change and we also change our minds. So instead I use the fundamentalist chains binding my brain as a point of creative departure, as the context that generates (as it were) letters from prison sent to the outside world. What’s the most important take-home message for readers? To be true to what I hope is the heart of the best of the universal religious message, I want to s…
Read More…ion as a “gap”-filled “theory that’s out there.” Perry’s attack on climate change was debunked by the Washington Post “Fact Checker” column, which gave him “four pinocchios” for claiming that the evidence on climate change was falling into scientific disrepute. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is on record expressing his belief that humans have contributed to global warming. And Utah governor Jon Huntsman joined him, taking a shot at Perry b…
Read More…ring who it is being directed to and where it is apparently originating. A number of Palestinians are Christians, and that Christianity is of course traced back to the time of Jesus himself. The Palestinian weekend is Friday and Sunday. In addition to being the world’s most annoying and dissatisfying weekend schedule (there should be an award for that, or maybe financial compensation), the days reflect the primary religious affiliations of Palesti…
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…ss 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 subject of abuse is probably the same in any religious community,” says Michael Salomon, a Long Island psychiatrist, who has just finished working on an as-yet-unpublished book about sexual abuse in the Orthodox world. “Different religions…
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…apacy legacy is in tatters historically, unless he can pull off an amazing change of heart, and language. At 83 years of age, that is hard to do. At the very least he should certainly heed the calls for an emergency synod to deal with the scope of the scandal. For all of his “doctrinal purity,” he very well may be in charge of the destruction of the moral and temporal authority of the Roman Catholic Church as he knows it. The Pope’s dogmatic stanc…
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