Religion Dispatches
…Smaller religious movements such as Pagan groups are often able to thrive online despite their small size and lack of resources. Conversely, the internet has presented liabilities for well-established religious institutions, particularly organizations that feature a hierarchical structure or esoteric teachings. Today’s cyber attack confirmed these predictions. As an acephalous group with no organizational structure, Anonymous is exactly the sort…
Read More…ect ancestral ties to the names they submitted for baptism, on penalty of being denied access to the database, or worse? What if letters were read in LDS Sunday meetings stressing the importance of the no-baptize policies, or talks given at LDS meetings by ranking Church officials stressing respect for the sanctity of the no-baptize policies? What if the Church crowdsourced efforts to monitor databases for the names of Holocaust victims? These ste…
Read More…to violate somebody’s free exercise, it has to impinge — substantially burden — their religious practice. And there is no substantial burden on Catholics’ religious practice by providing coverage — insurance coverage for contraception for other people. No one is making Catholics who do not want contraception to take it. No one is making the bishops take it, and so it’s not really a First Amendment issue in the eyes of the courts. And the bishops…
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…will not be holding any more seminars. However, important leaders of these communities have called for respect. One community member invoked Proverbs 24:17, “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls.” It is even rumored that while Rimer was hospitalized, local Pagans held rituals for his healing. America has a long history of moral panics regarding the religious Other and it does not appear this pattern will end any time soon. However, Rimer’s passing…
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…ination, violence, and exploitation. At the same time, it invites wider misunderstanding and an understandable disdain among non-Christians for what appears as a valorizing of violence in the Christian tradition. Theology is Complicated Much of this has had to do with the slow evolution of normative Christian theology, particularly with regard to what is known as atonement theology—the explanation for why Jesus, at once son of God and “true God fr…
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…equivocal and yet so characteristically calm and patient that it was forbidden under any circumstances. According to his family, Shaykh Emad was, for several days, at the sit-in outside the Cabinet building after finishing work, to stand in solidarity, when he was shot and killed. There is no doubt that he was unarmed. Whoever pulled that trigger delivered Shaykh Emad as a martyr; for whoever is killed unlawfully is indeed a martyr, a true shaheed…
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…feelings about growing up to die for your sins; that both grace and gifts come at a cost. Perhaps accidentally, perhaps not, Bourdain’s Krampus Carol ends up capturing something important about the relation of folk beliefs to institutional doctrine. When Krampus raises his clawed fist to punish these poor cherubs, we see on the wall behind them (blink and you’ll miss it at 1:42) the smiling mug of none other than Pope Benedict XVI. Just a random…
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…ly, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop published social media guidelines. The USCCB guidelines have a similar tone to those from the Diocese of Connecticut, with charming definitions of things like “web 2.0” and “blogs.” The USCCB guidelines also naively assume that social media engagement will unfold primarily on websites and social networking pages controlled by church authorities at one level or another. While Congregation Etz Chai…
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…rivately or parochially owned sacred space. Or consider the fight about Ground Zero, a place considered so sacred by some that they found the possibility of a mosque near the site as desacralizing. The blend, not the division, of sacred and profane spaces really matters to justice and its hopes. If the spirit of Occupy Wall Street and its home at “Liberty Square” is to survive and have impact, we occupiers need a larger understanding of what sacre…
Read More…p and turned around and looked at from new angles. Also, what counts as evidence in science is pretty well-defined. And if you do become an evolution expert, you actually will see that 99% of all scientists back evolution for a reason: the evidence demands it. This is the great generosity of science, and its great strength: It is actually all right there, ready to be seen and understood. It is relievedly explicit. It takes effort, sure, just as En…
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