Religion Dispatches
…ht be transferable to other types of available labor, and to “build on the best practices learned from Katrina and Rita.” A United Neighborhoods Approach Some of those best practices were honed at the Mary Queen Viet Nam church, where those helping to rebuild gathered, eating together from their own hands for months in the flood’s aftermath. They didn’t stop at bricks and mortar; community activism gave birth to organizations such as the Mary Quee…
Read More…nuckles un-rapped and our invoices signed, so we decided—not for the first time—that discretion really is the better part of valor. Besides, we weren’t entirely sure how one can chuck a link at someone’s head, so it was probably best to just let the whole thing drop. As it happens, we hold a certain affectionate proprietary feeling for the term “progressive.” After all, we grew up in Madison, home base of Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette, who ran…
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…an Court of Human rights in Strasbourg, where Kiska spends a great deal of time. Kiska is developing an allied attorney network dedicated to litigating European cases with the potential to impact ADF work in the United States. Kiska’s WCF presentation, “How to Fight Back against International Law,” included a four-point strategy that, while not revealing too many trade secrets, was notable for its venomous tone toward “humanists” and others who, h…
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…eedbed of a variety of new religious movements. Third, he claims that the best current development of that American Jewish tradition lies in the theology of Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the ex-Chabad Hasid who has become the intellectual leader of the Jewish Renewal movement that melds Jewish tradition with New Age thinking. It is Schachter-Shalomi who, styling himself “a Jewish practitioner of generic religion,” has blurred the boundaries betwe…
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…erverts it. Regarding its being a panacea, I show in the book how even the best-designed, most robust research on mindfulness is overhyped. Regarding the pernicious effects of self-focus, those are general in a species that needs a thriving polity and society to prosper. Is there anything you had to leave out? As I wrote, I felt more friendly toward authentic forms of original mindfulness, so I found myself leaving out some of the scorn I original…
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…echoed this idea in 1 Corinthians 7, saying that he saw singleness as the best, most hassle-free way for Christians to serve God, “But if [people] cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn.” The message here is pretty clear: a few folks are gifted with the call and the ability to live lives centered on something other than married life, but most of us will need to marry if for no other reason than to kee…
Read More…with considerable political reach. (The Jefferson Lies was on the New York Times best-seller list at the time it was withdrawn.) The Christian nationalist appeal is to, what historian Frank Lambert calls, a “usable past” that justifies the politics of the present. It suggests a transcendent purpose mandated by God and ordered by the Founding Fathers. As inspiring an idea as this may be for some, it is necessary for the Dominionist argument. After…
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…lk on beautifully groomed paths. They will stroll along and glide into the best seats. Most women, LGBTIQ+ people, divorced and remarried Catholics, and other persons may be on the same path but with enormous boulders, even mountains in their way. And most people will have neither time, energy, health, nor inclination to step a foot along a path they do not choose, to a destination they cannot pick, with people who do not stop long enough to bid t…
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…olina, and Wisconsin? They’re all right around the national average. Those numbers are not destiny, however. Conservative Utah has low levels of agreement with Christian nationalism, at just 28%. Meanwhile its solidly Democratic neighbor New Mexico is a bit higher, at 32%. Still, the results are significant for understanding the political scene today. Christian nationalism should not be ignored or downplayed, but at the same time the segment of th…
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…g to take. The social review by the team is highly subjective, even in the best scenarios. Since donated organs are a scarce resource, the goal is often to find the best host (recipient) for the organ so that it does not go to waste. In that environment, organs tend to go to people who can have a full-time caregiver, has family who will help with care, doesn’t take personal risks, and has a medical history of doing what doctors tell them to do. Al…
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