Religion Dispatches
…quences of one prayer’s answer are more troubles than you were facing. So, better to be prudent. I used to have a sticker in my car that I think sums it up, “Oh Allah grant me the most benevolent outcome.” This is the idea behind the special prayer worship called istikharah. Again, no details, but the word itself means asking for the best outcome, even as it is attached to an elaborate formula of ritual request. In another entry I had mentioned…
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…napped with my iPhone while on a trip to southern Ohio. I didn’t intend to use it for the book; I just thought it was a great picture. But as I considered cover ideas, that image of a decaying church perfectly embodied what I was trying to say in the book. Is there a book out there you wish you had written? How do you even narrow down a question like this? Fiction? Non-fiction? Historical? Contemporary? Other than naming my all-time favorite novel…
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…has been a surprisingly vibrant discussion surrounding the potential redundancy of the phrase ‘frozen tundra.’ The New York Times’ sports pages reported on Lake Superior State University’s eagerly awaited List of “Words Banished From the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness, 2003 edition,” which banished ‘frozen tundra’ for being redundant (missing the irony, perhaps, that this isn’t a word, it’s a phrase). LSSU’s 2004 edit…
Read More…wers of Jesus Christ. And without dismissing real theological distinctions between Mormonism and mainline Protestantism—and there are some—the Mormon experience suggests that the dominant usage of the term “Christian” in American discourse is not as a descriptor of the way an individual regards Jesus Christ, but as a political and social term used to distinguish sanctioned branches of Christianity and withhold approval from others, often in the se…
Read More…dering as Wallis and a few others prepare to push Congress and the White House for further concessions. “[The president’s] commitment to these principles,” said Wallis, “means we can now work together to make sure that they are consistently and diligently applied to any final health care legislation.” For Wallis, that means that “no person should be forced to pay for someone else’s abortion and that public funds cannot be used to pay for elective…
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…ightly charges against priests who have taken a vow of celibacy and are accused of sexually abusing children and misusing their power. Although it is not yet clear how Pope Benedict XVI will deal with these charges in the long run, his recent homily referring to the “petty gossip of dominant opinion” glossed over the seriousness of this scandal and what role, if any, he had in how the situation was mishandled at the Vatican, reminding his follower…
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…t of powerhouse programs like Florida State and Auburn. Some are there because they used drugs. One was charged with burglary. Another punched a woman in a bar. Football players spout self-serving platitudes all the time. “No relationship is perfect” is how Ray Rice explained the video of him striking his then-fiancee in an elevator in 2014. But Johnson isn’t trying to justify himself. He doesn’t use our shared imperfection to paint over his sins….
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…still higher pyramids of profit, I realize that never again can the Seder freeze. Now, again, we need a new Freedom Seder. “In every generation …” Indeed. What makes time and life into a spiral, instead of a straight line or an endless circle, is setting aside time for reflection, rest, renewal. That renewal-time—Shabbat, the Sabbath; each pause to bless Creation and say I-Thou before we make use of it; the Great Shabbat when, we are taught, we m…
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…they understand this as a public health intervention addressing the root causes of racial inequality. And there’s also an important difference between these protests and those in previous eras. They are decidedly multi-racial. The demand to defund the police and reinvest in social goods that address social problems while redefining safety strikes at the heart of the racial contract that citizens in Minneapolis and across the nation are attempting…
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…nalogous logic to the various facets of her public personae, including her use of occult symbols. Notwithstanding the worries of the conspiracy theorists, Lady Gaga’s symbols do not hide some deeper truth. They are part of the total simulation called “Lady Gaga.” In fact, the occluded eyes, sinister postures and such are no longer symbols at all. They are elements of surface style. The secret that these “symbols” conceal is that there is no truth…
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