Religion Dispatches
…prevailing sense of early 21st century LDS institutional life is that the best way to deal with such anxieties is to push through them, and that the best expression of the faith is the projection of a sense of assurance as polished and attractive as the storefronts at City Creek Mall. That’s how most Mormons plan to walk through what may very well be a season of public relations nightmares, as Romney’s GOP candidacy brings even greater scrutiny t…
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…n euros for the card to be activated for three days and to get three paper tickets. Up to the manuscript room, where I handed the ID card and one ticket to the clerk. She gave me a key to a locker, where I had to leave all my belongings except one pencil (not a pen, with which I could deface a manuscript) and a notebook. Reentering the reading room, I had to display my pencil and notebook to the clerk to get back my ID card and the ultimate prize:…
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…their psyches as inaccessible markers of meaning and status, than they are tickets to a Premier League match. A Spiritual War? This, at least, is the gist of much of the heated banter on the uprisings on the Facebook fan page of trip hop duo Massive Attack, where one fan drew something of a spiritual assessment from the film Fight Club: “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the m…
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…addressed, I wouldn’t find it so disturbing. Were Detroit’s finest giving tickets to Speedo-clad gentlemen terrorizing Americas beaches and public pools, I think they’d have a case. I think it’s safe to say that for most people what is ultimately repugnant about the aforementioned policies in some Islamic societies today is not their religious inspiration, but their ultimately tyrranical nature, the imposition of the opinions of one segment of so…
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…devotion to guns. While McBath and Schenck were coming from very different places and experiences, politically, racially, and even religiously, it was McBath’s religious testimony that proved the “tipping point” for the struggling Schenck. In the film, the two meet in the garden behind Faith and Action’s townhouse. McBath shares her story, one suffused not just with a mother’s unbearable grief, but with her determination to “walk the walk” of her…
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…tant regional manager of an insurance company—he actually says this—be the best assistant regional manager of an insurance company you can be. Work on something called your “craft.” (Even the insurance agent has a craft.) Also, pay attention to the details of life. Use the fine china. Unplug and play with your kids. Take a “Sabbath” from email. And you, too, will learn how to be here. Rob Bell, for most of us, will be best known as the guy who dec…
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…t began to isolate us from the outside world by cutting off power and cell phone towers. One hundred people sought refuge in the town’s Catholic church. They were forced out with tear gas. Some were hauled away by security forces. Some were killed, among them a priest, an attorney, aid workers, and people targeted because of their ethnicity or politics. This happened under the noses of UN peacekeepers who did not keep the peace. People who escaped…
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…for Life President Jeanne Mancini told the Times: I don’t think that these numbers are the most important. The number most important for us is 58 million, which is the number of Americans that have been lost to abortion. But either they have the numbers or they don’t. And if they don’t, maybe the media should take a hard look at how it covers a predictable, lightly attended act of agitprop which claims to represent hundreds of thousands of people…
Read MoreWhat inspired you to write Places of Redemption: Theology for a Worldly Church? What sparked your interest? I was inspired to write the book because my original interest in liberation-type theologies, particularly feminist theology, led me to the inevitable judgment that theology should attend to what’s generally called “popular religion.” Theology (my field) needs to pay attention to the creative things ordinary believers do with their faith. So…
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…etreat room. For people who let the hustle and bustle of city life get the best of them, I highly recommend such quarters: blissful darkness, with a gentle hooting owl in an otherwise silent night. But I was up and out this morning before the sunrise, because I have a full day ahead of me and needed to be in my own reclusive space to get it started. I have far less need of time away and alone than I have of good company, I realize again and again….
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