Religion Dispatches
…those of us whose lifestyles are dependent upon a ‘religious’ devotion to cheap oil. The deepest irony of all is that BP, along with the other oil companies, has come to function as a god. The truth, buried beneath all the oil and punditry, is that our devotion to this false god has led to the suffering of innocents, in the oceans and beaches, in the marshes and ecosystems, and in our communities. We have been slow, too slow by far, to realize th…
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…rs of consciousness” to “build bridges between science and spirit,” and “research subtle energies.” Such baloney works wonders for middle-class self-absorption, and for Brown it serves as a useful device. By merging mind and matter, it allows Brown, through Katherine Solomon, to construct his own “missing link between modern science and ancient mysticism.” Part of the appeal of Brown’s books is the hint that there is some profound reality underlyi…
Read More…hey don’t have it as bad as gays in ISIS-held territory. So let’s put that cheap argument to bed. At Patheos, Benjamin Corey shakes that cheap argument awake: Can we stop complaining about this bogus idea that American Christians are persecuted now? I mean, really. Can we stop? The world needs us to turn from ourselves and focus on this real persecution, because it’s evil and must be exposed and stopped. However, our own self-centeredness as Ameri…
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…ouldn’t set my own schedule. I had to buy special clothes, eat at mandated times and attend an orientation. Rather than the dream of a peaceful retreat I’d cherished for months, this was New Age fascism. While other guests enjoyed the dissonances – a search for self set against a late-night bar scene, costly multiversity classes, and nightly videos of Osho’s rambling, racist and misogynist lectures, I felt like screaming. So I did. I screamed at t…
Read More…ly 80 empty seats, and it was clear that some number of attendees had free tickets. The largest financial supporter of the event was a local news/talk radio station and its representatives were the only media allowed in. As I arrived with my Religion Dispatches press badge they stopped me before I even got to the door. I chatted with an AP reporter and he said AP had been trying for weeks to gain media access—but that he was there to see if he cou…
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…in the early nineties for most people consisted largely of acquiring plane tickets, reading relatively static documents, and emailing acquaintances. By 2004, the year before John Paul died, search engines had become sophisticated and powerful, and the immensely popular online world Second Life was in its third year. MySpace had appeared the year before, and Mark Zuckerberg was feverishly writing the code that would become Facebook. YouTube was ju…
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…e else wondered if it might be seven days considering that seven is a holy number, or forty, the same amount of time Noah was forced to sail around with a boatload of animals. When those deadlines passed, another narrative took shape. What happened was a test. God knew that believers would be mocked when He failed to return on the assigned date. Would believers hold firm or would they allow the jeers of the world to weaken their resolve? The Lord…
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…ieger, like those ridden by rapturous moments at a revival, goes slack sometimes, and this book has its limp, cheap moments, cellophane grass and gassy puns that might only elicit an “organ yawn” from readers. It may not be the best poetry collection in English published this year—that may, in fact, like rivers of milk and honey or peace and goodwill between all humans on earth, simply not be a thing—but Giving Godhead is a worthwhile example of a…
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…experienced during this pandemic. What my colleague and I call “planetary times” or the time and pace of ambiguity. As philosopher of science Isabelle Stengers argues, perhaps instead of the goal-oriented thinking of “progress,” and all the tragedies that pile up along with it, we ought to think about time and our place within the planet as a palaver: a meandering or a wandering about with no specific goal but to “go on a walk.” What in German is…
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…or a family of four (18 million people in 2012 or 17.5 percent of all full-time, year-round workers). It was not always like this. There was a time in our history when the poor and unemployed experienced a more compassionate government. During the Great Depression the federal government not only provided safety nets in the form of relief, food aid, public housing, mortgage assistance, unemployment insurance, and farm aid, but more significantly, i…
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