Religion Dispatches
…s’. This vacuum is partially a physical one, being by yourself without any spiritual or medical support, and partially a sad reflection of the fact that most of us have learned all of our science (even in the formal classroom) in a social-spiritual vacuum, as a set of disconnected facts and not as the integral part of life and society they are. It’s the vacuum that fills the vast gap between the accelerating science and technology we are accumulat…
Read More…nd year old teaching in the Talmud that the practice of homosexuality is a spiritual cause of earthquakes. Once a disaster is unleashed, innocents are also victims just like in Chernobyl. Levin’s release says that he represents “1,000 rabbis” in this belief, but their own web site only boasts “800+ members” but does not list specific affiliations. The group of Ultra-Orthodox Jews have apparently been around since 1945, and “seeks to promulgate the…
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…the banking sector. It won’t say a thing about the actual condition of the 19 banks whose “results” will be released this afternoon. And that’s because this is a “test” that the bankers themselves helped create, supplying the “data” from which government examiners will give out results. As many observers point out, it’s as though some overweight slobs were put on the treadmill, asked to take a few strides, and then say how they feel—without ever…
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…holarship done this summer. Meanwhile, I try to hold it together to write a 800-word piece without crying and wanting to tear my hair out about the pain of my people. I’m not writing prophetic words to you anymore. You fix this shit. I’m done carrying the cross of America, its false promises of democracy and inclusion, the documents that excluded me and called my ancestors three-fifths of a person. You figure it out. I’m about comforting Black peo…
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…estioning Zionism as central to Jewish identity. Rabbi Brant Rosen, who for 17 years led the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, Illinois, recently stepped down from his pulpit, following a summer of protest against the Gaza war with the left-wing Jewish Voice for Peace, on whose Rabbinical Council he serves. (Compared to J Street’s 800-plus-member Rabbinic Cabinet, JVP’s two-year-old Rabbinic Council has just 50.) Rosen told me he…
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…and cliché! We are, instead, moving toward what [Taylor] calls a galloping spiritual pluralism. People in search of fullness are able to harvest the intellectual, cultural and spiritual gains of the past 500 years. Poetry and music can alert people to the realms beyond the ordinary . . . We are not moving to a spiritually dead wasteland . . . Advances in human understanding — not only in science but also in art, literature, manners, philosophy and…
Read MoreThere’s an old joke in newsrooms that goes if you can find three examples of something, it’s automatically worthy of a trend story. And so, according to the rule, it’s too early to call this a trend. Still, it is interesting that two news stories came out yesterday about school districts ending government-endorsed religious observances because they recognize that they would probably lose a costly First Amendment battle. Could it be that in the wa…
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…said Courtney Kendrick, whose C Jane Enjoy It blog is ranked among the top 800 blogs on Technorati. By comparison, Times and Seasons is ranked at about 31,000, and By Common Consent is ranked at about 25,000. Mormon Mommy Wars is ranked at about 40,000. Kendrick has blogged in the past for Segullah, a blog that is included on the list at the Mormon Archipelago, an online portal that aggregates blogs in the Bloggernacle, but she now prefers to wri…
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…s encouraged by the degree of interest in the February 9 webinar, for which 1500 people registered, 800 of whom attended. These are very large numbers for events of this nature, and part of the reason for releasing the report at this time is to “keep public attention on Christian nationalism.” While no particular next steps are immediately planned, Tyler expresses hope “that this will be a resource for the [US House Select Committee on the January…
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…ts plans? Kaiser found in fact that 10 percent of nonprofits with more than 1,000 employees have requested an accommodation to the contraceptive mandate, as did five percent of firms with between 200 and 999 employees. According to Kaiser, “many of the nonprofits who have sought the accommodation are likely health systems or educational institutions affiliated with the Catholic Church, which objects to birth control.” According to Kaiser, there ar…
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