Search for "VIPREG2024 1xbet india promo code Central African Republic"

Schools Should Compete for Cash, Obama Says

By Peter Laarman

…hildren because “lifting up quality education for all our children… is the central premise” of the program. Well, ah, yes: RTTT certainly does lift up the idea of quality schooling and will doubtless benefit some children. But does it also lift up the ideal of equality and equal access for all? And what of the vast majority of students who receive no benefit; and who will suffer as their school systems are branded as losers? On these all-important…

Will bin Laden’s Killing End the Jihadi Trend?

By Christopher Anzalone

…among these are the continued US and NATO military presence in Afghanistan and the extensive US military campaign in Pakistan that is believed to have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Pakistani civilians in air strikes. Even within the original al Qaeda bin Laden has probably not played a central operational role for many years, though he remained an influential voice and symbol. The organization has cultivated a new set of charismatic leader…

The Pope and Social Media: A Digital Counter-Reformation?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…he dominant modes of interpersonal expression and communication as well as central mechanisms in the construction of personal identity, social identity, and community. One Step Forward, Three or Four Centuries Back Yet, Web 2.0 and all that his effort attempts to be, I can’t help noticing how much the Pope’s World Communication Day message echoes themes of the 16th and 17th century Counter Reformation. Largely a response to the provocations of the…

New Age Tragedy in Sedona: Non-Indians in the Sweat Lodge

By Johnny P. Flynn

…the use of the sweat as a healing ritual—and they shared the ceremony with Indians and non-Indian supporters from around the country. Like the dried head of a dandelion, the sweat lodge drifted here and there and landed far from where it started. Ceremony, Ritual, But Not Yet a Religion Both the sweat lodge and the Native American Church peyote ceremony started as healing rituals for one or a few participants, people suffering from some kind of sp…

The Man of Science vs. The Man of Faith: Richard Dawkins Spars with Stephen Colbert

By Byron R. McCane and Dan Mathewson

…atheism, Richard Dawkins, made an appearance on The Colbert Report, Comedy Central’s spoof of the Fox News-style, uber-conservative, pro-family values political commentary show. The purported reason for Dawkins’ visit was to discuss his newly released tome, The Greatest Show on Earth, a book that claims to reveal “the evidence for evolution,” as declared by the book’s subtitle. But for Stephen Colbert, the show’s faux-conservative bombast of a hos…

Jesus Goes to the Dark Carnival: Hell House Gets a Makeover?

By W. Scott Poole

…o die at the hands of their attackers. The one script that makes a woman a central figure (“Hannah’s Hope”) still makes her a victim. Hannah is dying of a brain tumor but not before God gives her one final grace: she gets to become Homecoming Queen of her high school. To quote from the official Judgement House Web site’s description of the narrative: “our homecoming Queen went home for eternity to be with her King, Jesus Christ.” In some respects,…

Suicide Bombers and the Prozac God: A Review of Dying for Heaven

By Bruce B. Lawrence

…cence, for instance—are also its most dangerous. While it may be easy to decode the thesis from a mere glance at the book’s title and subtitle, it’s not quite so easy to accept the premise. Dying for Heaven, released today, is at once conceptually misguided and systemically flawed; psychologizing religion in general and Islam in particular. Having mined myriad, often disparate sources, and writing from a lofty platform, the author is attempting to…

The Gospel of Contradiction: An Interview with Mary Gordon

By Nathan Schneider

…erfection. But I don’t think it works very well in the world. Finally, the central question of everything has to be its relationship to human suffering. Does the ascetic contribute to the alleviation of suffering, or does it contribute to more suffering? When I look at people in my own life who have alleviated my suffering or who have caused my suffering, it tends to be the Prodigal Son-types who have alleviated it. My great spiritual ideal is Joh…

Beyond Radical: Mary Daly, Feminist Theologian, Changed Worlds

By Susan Henking

…ncing (and becoming) themSelves. Denied tenure (eventually overturned) and promotion to full professor, and forced into retirement, the longtime Boston College professor’s career spanned world transformations of Roman Catholicism, higher education, and American culture’s treatment of women. Beginning with her degrees from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, where she was the first woman to receive a theological degree, through her witnessin…

Haiti and the Push for Theological Questions

By Paula M. Cooey

…eated, given that God is, after all, both benevolent and all powerful. The central figure Candide, a naïf of the first order, challenges theodicy with the ironclad logic of a child as he proceeds through an adolescent life riddled by personal disaster. Given human suffering (particularly from natural disaster, and particularly the suffering of those who are not on the face of it evil), how can this possibly be the best of all worlds? And if this i…