Religion Dispatches
…speaking to them by tomorrow. That will be my last day, and I don’t want anything hanging over my head about local logistics, because I can’t take them with me and I don’t want to have any overdue amounts on that account either. Meanwhile, I am still collecting prayer requests and that means praying now and still remembering to call their names at Arafat. Yesterday I learned that a dear, dear friend has just gotten a cancer diagnosis. I’ll be rea…
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…es some of Jim and Tammy’s appeal. PTL was all about images so there were any number of options. Too bad books can’t come with a dozen different covers to choose from. Is there a book out there you wish you had written? Which one? Why? I love the writing style of Lawrence Wright and Hampton Sides. They are both masters at weaving nonfiction into a page-turner. Anything half as good would be fine with me. What’s your next book? I’m not sure yet. Ho…
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…not believe in this nation—a First Amendment nation where we do not raise any religion over the other and we allow people to worship as they please, that the doctrines of any one religion should be mandated for everyone. Pence, however, asserted that he doesn’t “struggle” to balance faith and public policy like Kaine because the later springs from the former, and discussed how his pro-life stance infuses his policy decisions: …for me … the sanctit…
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…ith every outward step, as our universe and our ignorance grows, so do the number of potential space alien hideouts. So does the belief that there must be someone out there. So every time I read about the discovery of a new Earth-like planet or read about NASA’s upcoming Kepler planet-finding mission or watch a movie like Contact, I grow excited over—and, like Brahe, even a little afraid of—the vast unknown. My mind boggles. What’s really out ther…
Read More…aid of the religious left. It means we’re doing our job. And just in case anyone missed the number of religious progressive groups endorsing the rally, here’s a list culled from One Nation site. Their list of endorsers is pretty long, so I apologize if I missed somebody: Rainbow PUSH Coalition The Shalom Center Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations Sikh Coalition The Religious Institute The Community Church of NY Unitarian Universali…
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…as a means of examining our culture?” The evangelical subculture is, in many senses, no different than any other in that it creates its own monsters, including paganism and anything related to “the occult.” One of the tricky things about monsters is that they often come back to haunt their creators, asking some thorny questions in the process. Consider Frankenstein’s monster, stitched together from corpses by his master as a means of empowerment….
Read More…eard. It is regrettable, that such a thing as September 11 had to happen, any where, for anyone. Yet the results include greater access to America for a select Brown Muslim population. Still African-American Muslims outnumber them, and face double invisibility and erasure: from within and from without. So, if you ever wonder why I don’t comment on some of the “top” stories in the news about Islam in America, I intentionally try not to respond to s…
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…hostage situation, we would have dispatched the SWAT team by now. And in many ways, it is. Our children and teenagers are being held hostage by a religious and political rhetoric that strives to maintain the status quo of anti-gay heterosexist normativity. The messages of Focus on the Family and other organizations actively strive to leave the most vulnerable among us exposed to continuous attack. The good news is that we don’t need a SWAT team. W…
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…ble and handsome, Pope John Paul II may have been an unknown quantity to many in the Church, but he was an immediate hit on the newsstand. Excluding U.S. presidents, Pope John Paul II earned more Time covers than anyone—fourteen in eighteen years. Newsweek was similarly swayed. Describing John Paul II in 1979, covers of the two magazines differed only on matters of grammar: while Newsweek spoke of his “triumph”, Time praised his “triumphal return….
Read More…alism that Harvard has traditionally espoused. JUNE In June, Greaves did a number of interviews taking aim at Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and his efforts to ban gay marriage and limit access to abortion. A native of Detroit, Greaves called Snyder “an idiot governor.” He discussed campaigns that would invoke the free exercise clause to challenge Snyder’s legislation, including the assertions that gay marriage is a Satanic sacrament and that Satan…
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