Religion Dispatches
…rom humans into pig fetuses.” Although this sounds like something out of a South Park episode in which scientists graft on a you-know-what to the back of a lab mouse so Mrs. Garrison can be a man again, or perhaps reminiscent of H. G. Wells’ Island of Doctor Moreau, this science fiction is fast becoming science. If it proves successful, this technology could dramatically reduce the long waiting lists to receive transplanted organs and tissue, the…
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…The Villages. It seemed like a nice day for a drive so I thought I’d head south to attend the rally, talk to some tea partiers and listen to the speeches. Scott, whose public approval ratings are sinking in the polls, had chosen to move the signing from Tallahassee to the tea party stronghold, and in particular, this make-believe world in the middle of the state. The Villages is a surreal place. It’s like a sprawling residential Disney with faux…
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…articular form of triumph that allowed the heroes of Gettysburg, North and South, to cry together, USA! USA! Americans cried that together during the great national reconciliation of the Spanish-American War, when, as the press widely reported, “blues” and “grays” came together to rid the hemisphere of the last vestiges of the decayed evil empire of the Spanish. National exultation over the rapid victory (akin to the same national feeling after th…
Read More…t generation was fairly ethnocentric, so Arabs would build one mosque, and South Asians another. If populations were large enough, you could get subdivided further, so that there would be a Lebanese mosque, a Syrian mosque, a Pakistani mosque, and an Indian mosque. In the second generation, those types of divides are disappearing, and many centers are becoming multi-ethnic and include African-Americans. To me, that says our next great challenge wi…
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…wanted Osama bin Laden; in that there is cause for profound spiritual reflection. There is also, I hope, cause to end any confusion of what he and his followers did with what Muslims want and what Islam teaches. I pray we find in his anonymous burial, in the sea south of Pakistan, that at the end, none of the peoples he claimed to be fighting on behalf of wanted him; more than that, to the few grumbling voices out there, President Obama’s framing—…
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…m preaching on account of her gender. She connects apartheid in her native South Africa with this apartheid at the altar. Alta Jacko draws on Sojourner Truth as part of her inspiration to become what she was forbidden to be by a patriarchal Church. Victoria Rue laughingly tells about distributing Necco Wafers to the children in her neighborhood when they played Mass. There is a lot of footage of ordination ceremonies with women in colorful vestmen…
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…es to Hank Williams. Our friends are second-generation American Muslims of South Asian, Arab, and African heritage, white converts, and beautiful toddlers of interracial marriages. Watching them interact, I am content, and hopeful for our future here. My husband and I push the stroller through the neighborhood after our friends leave. The festival is officially over but children are still dancing on a wooden floor as the crew dismantles the stage…
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…g figure in the Jewish community than Richard Goldstone? When the esteemed South African judge issued his 2009 report alleging that Israel had committed human rights abuses during the 2008-2009 Gaza War (known as Operation Cast Lead), many in the Jewish community condemned him as a traitor. A synagogue sought to ban him from attending his own grandson’s Bar Mitzvah. On the other side, some skipped over the report’s criticisms of Hamas and the call…
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…map, a staple of humanitarians that shows the true vastness of the global south. The burden on these men feels just as vast. Mercifully, though, their way of life doesn’t allow for a whole lot of time for agonizing. As Trappist monks—the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, officially—they gather in the church several times a day to chant prayers, from before dawn until after dusk. In between, they’re busy with “spiritual reading” and o…
Read More…g happen in the Middle East prophetically? You are seeing the King of the South come together with lightning speed. Egypt has an army of one million men armed with 1500 Abram Tanks which are America’s best. We sold them to Egypt along with hundreds of our latest and greatest fighter jets because Egypt was controlled by Mubarak who was America’s friend. Can you imagine what Israel faces with Iran, Egypt, Syria, Turkey and Russia coming after the…
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