Religion Dispatches
…ble assertion to make in such a tendentious book. Perhaps there is a small number of Americans losing their lives at the hands of hasty harvesters; even a very small number would be too high. But I had a hard time summoning any outrage. In the end I learned much more from Kagan—ironically because his aims are in a way more modest. He wants to convince you of his physicalist stance; however, he doesn’t want to tell you how to reconcile with death….
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…from this Israeli government. And that alienation exists even though Birthright offers young American Jews a Disney-fied Israel experience that evades the harsh realities of Palestinian life in the West Bank.” What does the attachment mean, exactly, even for kids who haven’t gone on Birthright? Are they attached to Israel the idea, or Israel the reality, occupation and all? The Reform Movement is trying very hard to attract and retain young peopl…
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…into face-to-face relationships. If the folks at Nielsen are correct, smartphones will continue to overtake, uh, dumb phones, making app-based connection and information-sharing a continuing growth area. Religiously-themed apps are certain to be an important part of that, but unless they grasp the digital trinity of social engagement, spiritual meaning, and incarnational potential that makes such apps truly worthwhile for believers and seekers. Th…
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…. Luckily, Weir offers a treasure trove of short stories on his website, a number of which break with The Martian’s goal of approximating reality, grappling instead with some of the same issues that we discuss here at The Cubit. Without further ado, here are the top three short stories for anyone jonesing for more Weir: Bored World. The story of a mischievous, trans-dimensional plane of existence. Is this a god, or the story of sci-fi itself? Anti…
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…n favor of infanticide, or “post-birth abortion.” They say a woman has the right not only to terminate her pregnancy, but to put to death a child up to the age of 4 or 5. The report has been accepted—apparently uncritically—by Gene Veith, who teaches literature at Patrick Henry College (whose president just resigned), by a variety of conservative bloggers, and by many more on Facebook. The evidence for the growing trend is nonexistent. McArdle her…
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…st likely to indicate outright refusal to take a Covid-19 vaccine, while a number of other studies have also found that number hovering close to 25 percent. Journalists and academics alike have attempted to make sense of this discrepancy, pointing to existential fear, anti-intellectualism, and Christian nationalism as potential influences on American evangelicals’ vaccine antipathy. As a scholar of American evangelicalism and media, I am inclined…
Read More…the defeat of SB-1433 is yet another data point suggesting that full legal rights for fetuses is a step too far even for many who consider themselves pro-life — precisely because of the possible unintended consequences. Perhaps the pro-choice cognate is the position which holds that nobody may ever raise a moral objection to any abortion ever, not even a theoretical abortion, and not even if that objection is offered with no attendant desire to le…
Read More…ndous surveillance going on in and around the mosques of New York City and right now that has been totally cut out.” The NYPD spying program, which came to light when the Associated Press reported on it in 2011, was suspended in 2014; the NYPD admitted that it produced no terrorism leads. While authorities have not confirmed that a Syrian passport found in Paris belonged to one of the perpetrators, initial reports of the passport has provoked a pa…
Read More…its uncompromising nature: a fetus at any stage of development is a legal, rights-bearing person. Full stop, no exceptions. A person is a person, the end. To be open to compromise, amendments, and qualifications is to undercut the distinctive thing about the movement. It’s what prompts some people to get on the personhood bandwagon, and to donate money. But the personhood’s failure to be open to any such compromise seems, at least in Mississippi a…
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…reater vitality on the left, and I agree that this is better than steering right or being tepid—but at best what has happened on this front has been a wash for liberal Protestants in institutional terms. As I’ve argued before, amid decline from birthrates, leftward moves (not least by institutions like UTS) have probably repelled roughly an equal number of people as they have attracted—and meanwhile there has been a net loss of wealthy donors and…
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