Religion Dispatches
…ents and your community, you still have to make some assessment of who you are, and how you are, as a Muslim. My own door was kind of accidental. I went to a mosque for more information about this Islam, I had read a little about in books. Because I had my hair covered and was wearing a long skirt, I think the brothers assumed I was already there, and I ended up taking my shahadah, declaration of faith or witness. It was Thanksgiving day 1972. Fro…
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…to everyone else’s. There’s a logic to this idea that’s deeply appealing (particularly, Biss argues, for the educated, wealthier parents who form one of the key anti-vaxxer demographics). The heroes of our fictions are defined by their exceptional characteristics, and by their exceptional invulnerability. No matter how many bad guys try to shoot Tris Prior in Insurgent, they always seem to miss. No matter how many other children rely on the medica…
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…. We gather in the back of the church in near silence, shoes shuffling on marble, dwarfed by the soaring ceiling and looming stained glass windows. We will make our way through the steps of Jesus’s crucifixion, carrying a big wooden cross, so big it has to be hoisted on the shoulders of four or five people. One year, I helped carry the cross from the third station to the fourth, surprised by the power of that touch—I felt it physically. This year,…
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…owledged that most Exodus members are single and remain so, that those who are married are trying to salvage an existing marriage rather than starting new, straight ones, and that homosexual desire stays homosexual desire. “In the past,” he said, “we’ve been aligned with organizations that believe feelings can completely change, temptations can completely go away. We now believe that’s an unrealistic and unhealthy expectation that can cause a lot…
Read More…tutu, and even wore a rainbow colored one for the Pride celebration this year. He rocked that tutu. Fortunately for Ayden, no one has yet to ridicule this beautiful boy in a tutu — but a boy his mom calls “Boo” on her blog was not so lucky. The mom, who maintains a blog called “Nerdy Apple Bottom” describes the terrible treatment she received at her son’s pre-school when he went to a Halloween party dressed as Daphne from the animated series “Scoo…
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…tage it is not insignificant that evangelical Christians increasingly play such a public—and nearly exclusive—role in championing particular conceptions of “manhood.”…
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…hand and get you more of what you want. Those who take this approach too far are mystified when some voters seem to “vote against their interests,” preferring candidates who don’t actually agree with them—such as evangelicals who don’t seem particularly concerned that Trump is not one of their own. This is the problem that the affective approach helps us understand. Political factions are made first by emotions, only secondarily by policy proposa…
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…the 108 beads, and when they’ve completed the beads, they’re allowed to wear it around their necks. When I said it reminded me of rosary beads within the Catholic tradition, Polk responds, “It’s all the same really.” Studio 262 In January, the Los Angeles native opened her studio on Figueroa Street, just two minutes from where she grew up on 29th and Vermont. Polk, who has been practicing yoga for five years and benefited greatly, wanted to find…
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…“multiracial” can’t mean that people of color and Black people in particular are still expected to shut up about the centuries-long and highly particular injuries of race. Nor should “Multiracial” mean white people get to remain oblivious to the actual history. I cringe a little when white Lefties evoke the glorious days of the 1930s, complete with images of industrial workers of all hues marching arm-in-arm and singing “Solidarity Forever.” That…
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…nd the young evangelicals who refuse to live within the imposed strictures are far more likely to become ex-evangelicals than to succeed at changing evangelical institutions and culture from the inside. Examples abound outside evangelical institutions of higher education as well. Richard Cizik, for instance, was purged from the National Association of Evangelicals in 2008 over his support for pro-environment politics and then-presidential candidat…
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