Religion Dispatches
…ally a very, very fast talker. But I have to really slow down when in most international contexts. I’m used it. I started living abroad 35 years ago and so my sense of Islam in the world is shaped by the world, not just some ideal of the world. Last night and when I was in Australia, I found I got more said in a short period of time than I could in most of my professional situations internationally. It does something to free my brain. But let me n…
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…ng settlements and a wall, intruding on land that the Palestinians and the international community say the Jews have no right to occupy. Who wouldn’t fight back against such intruders, as the villagers of Budrus ask, especially when the settlers’ violence against Palestinians continues to mount? But as long as Jews stay within the pre-1967 borders of their state, they are now almost completely safe from attack by politically-motivated Arabs. It’s…
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…e seen it. U2’s “City of Blinding Lights” plays over the rolling images of international footballers in moments of rapture. The Edge’s epic guitar riff complements the moment. ESPN knows what that threaded riff does to people like me when accompanying emotionally piqued football highlights. Over the top of that, the pop prophet Bono speaks: “If history means anything, the world as we know it is about to change.” Melodrama? Maybe, but so are many o…
Read MoreWho knew? Andy Stern, the former head of the Service Employees International Union who now sits on President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, said the United States needs an economic plan that does not include “worshipping” the free market. “America needs a 21st century economic plan because we now know the market-worshipping, privatizing, de-regulating, dehumanizing American financial plan has failed and should ne…
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…s the Green Movement continues to agitate. I think we also need to look at international context as well. The spate of anti-Muslim debates in Europe, including the French ban of the burqa, demand Iran respond in a manner that indicates Islamic solidarity. The language of the haircut restrictions centers around “Islamic” and “Western.” It is not coincidental that these events are happening in close temporal proximity to one another. The New York Ti…
Read More…aking of poor judgment, a non-denominational Florida church plans to host “International Burn a Qur’an Day” on the anniversary of 9/11. The same Gainesville church made news in the past with its “No Homo Mayor” signs opposing an openly gay mayor. Lt. Governor of South Carolina André Bauer discusses how he uses shoes to save souls. New York Governor David Paterson denied reports that he had swapped Judaism for his Catholic faith. However, Gwyneth P…
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…g as a resource/publications specialist for the ex-gay organization Exodus International. These seminars, most led by former TG/TS folk who had come to accept their birth gender, were geared to give hope to those struggling with their gender identity and seeking change to live a “biblical lifestyle,” which constituted heterosexual marriage or celibacy. Andrew Marin, founder of evangelical-based The Marin Foundation has been working for over ten ye…
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…the government, industry, universities, and scientists at the federal and international level should be and are discussing and monitoring such issues; Homeland Security should be (and of course is already) aware of and monitoring such research. But I have a suggestion: let’s take this—the language of creation and religion crossing into science—as a positive, if provocative sign, perhaps even as a call for engagement. Where ethicists, religious le…
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…e or less the same background and cultural assumptions to a vastly diverse international and cultural smorgasbord. Famous Harvard researcher Marc Hauser, who ironically studies the evolution of morality, has had to retract one published paper and is caught in the gnarly web of university and federal investigation he said/she said that I would wish upon no one. From the eventual investigation reports we will one day learn the final word on the alle…
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…particular, and also among good people of all faiths: A powerfully sacred international transcript. Clergy and religious laity issued statements condemning the hatred and discrimination pulsating throughout Arizona’s Christian and Jewish communities (no official word to the large percentage of Mormons was issued). How ironic, then, that some advocates of Arizona’s SB 1070 have misappropriated Chavez in their anti-immigrant hysteria, citing the la…
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