Religion Dispatches
…nued, “It’s a dangerous path, it’s a path that grows government, restricts freedom and liberty, and compromises those values, those Judeo-Christian, Western-civilization values that made us such a great and exceptional nation in the first place.” A Ryan campaign spokesman told NBC News about Ryan’s comments: “He was talking about issues like religious liberty and ObamaCare—topics he has mentioned frequently during the campaign.” These are standard…
Read More…, it helps him on the campaign trail because it is very much a part of the Western story, especially in Wyoming, where Mormons trekked through on the way to what would become Utah. Henrichsen’s run also highlights an aspect of Mormon culture: in his words “Mormon culture is focused on professions, where success is viewed as a good by the community.” Perhaps articulating what Mitt Romney doesn’t know how to say well, Henrichsen’s good cheer and ind…
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…finally excising the imperial and hostile malignancies embedded within the Western Christian inheritance—will surely encounter resistance; he adds that the answer to anxiety about getting attacked is to trust the “resources for self-correction” God has already given. He then goes on to describe what applying the right amount of “creative disturbance” might look like, not just in doctrine but in liturgy and mission. I spoke to McLaren while he was…
Read More…et is offensive for several reasons (to say nothing of the long history of Western intervention in the Middle East and the traumatic aftereffects of colonialism, which could be a whole article itself). For one thing, Muhammad is dear to Muslim hearts in the way Jesus is to many Christians: He brought us enlightenment. But Muhammad is also dear to Muslim hearts because Muslims strive to be like him, to the extent of looking like him (and his clos…
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…evolution, the development of a “global perspective” which brought the non-Western religions to the attention of Americans (oddly, he does not mention the changes in American culture brought on by the immigration act of 1965), the growing wealth of Americans, and the waning of the East Coast WASP establishment. These factors, he claims, led to a weakening of Christian orthodoxy and its hold over the American spirit. The traditional churches respon…
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…sands of troops, diplomats, and other Americans still stationed there. His promotion of this latest film has now contributed in some way to violence in Libya and Egypt, and that includes the death of one of our best ambassadors. We are on the precipice of war with Iran. The Middle East is deeply unstable, and we are unfortunately caught up in much of that uncertainty. This is not the time for inflammatory action; there are anti-democratic forces i…
Read More…an for the Northern Star Council, which has 75,000 Scouts in Minnesota and western Wisconsin. “Our commitment has been to reach out to all young people and have a positive influence.” York said that the Twin Cities-based Scout council, one of the nation’s largest, will continue to follow a 12-year-old “inclusive leadership selection” practice. “Every council is reflective of their community,” he said. Which makes sense. Large organizations express…
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…or autonomy from a hostile mainstream and by necessity engendered by their western isolation. Today, that drive is motivated—as I’ve heard discussed among leading figures in Mormon Studies this week and as was hinted at in the Church’s own statement and a Deseret News editorial today—by the need to create an endowment capable of sustaining the global physical infrastructure of Mormonism (temples, churches, universities) even as the bulk of the Chu…
Read More…ies highlighting how and why Utah Mormons might make good foot soldiers in western swing states, and nothing-new polls gauging consistent levels of voter antipathy towards Mormon candidates (with zero analysis). I’m waiting for the story that transcends the flat ethnicity paradigm and gets the deeper and more persistent question of religion and moral bearings: How does the most religiously devout candidate in recent memory reconcile a life of reli…
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…e, because my experience, as both a practitioner and a teacher, is that it promotes much more than relaxation. It opens the heart, it clarifies the mind; like the torso of Apollo in Rilke’s poem, it often demands, “you must change your life.” And if the thirst for “balance and harmony” (Atlas’ words) is the inspiration for practice—well, why not? If Atlas’ presentation of Buddhism seems trivial at times, that same smallness of scale makes it appro…
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