Religion Dispatches
…the Mexico City Games began). We think of boycotts in Moscow in 1980, and Los Angeles in 1984, and the debates roiling as we speak. The simple fact is that religious rituals, events, and religious symbols are powerful magnets for intense political protest, and even for physical violence. They always have been, and probably always will be. The famous 2nd-century Roman travel writer, Pausanias, reported that the desiccated corpse of an armored hopl…
Read More…others more important than our own superfluous abundance. So what of that City [up]on a Hill? Is it like stage from which everyone can see us? A place of honor? A Pedestal? Frankly the Puritans would have considered that idolatrous hubris. Winthrop meant that, as representatives of the Christian faith, the rest of the world would judge Christianity (and even God) by whether or not they lived up to this commitment. For we must consider that we sha…
Read More…al form in the document,” he said. But he said the document does specify a number of halachic principles related to the need “to include homosexuals within faith communities and make them feel at ease in their community.” …He said the document was created in response to the fact “that homosexuals choose increasingly to remain within faith communities, which in the past they would leave because of their orientation. It used to be that you were eith…
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…courts, but also in six continents and 41 countries, including Argentina, Belize, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, Slovakia, and India…. ADF has a dedicated focus on the Organization of American States, and they are planning, over the next three years, to open offices in Chile and Costa Rica. ADF’s work with the OAS is bifurcated between the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights and their Washington, D.C., office, where the Inter-American…
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…y mostly older colleagues was sometimes a challenge. In my late 20s, I was lost in the sea of 40,000 students from all over the world. One afternoon, desperate for advice, I went to the office of my colleague Steve Tollefson, and we had one of those long, rambling conversations about teaching that inevitably forks into other topics. Steve was in his 50s, but he could talk to anyone, from 18-year-old freshmen to emeriti faculty in their 70s and 80s…
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…concrete slabs and illegally tapped into an adjacent power line for electricity. They dug into the ground and connected to the city’s water supply to have drinking water and dug a pit for a latrine. With television and a refrigerator, they managed to create a viable living space. The residents of Erbil were remarkably tolerant—sympathetic, really—to the situation of such impromptu refugee camps, and the refugees in vacant lots received hand-outs a…
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…wore number 2, Gianna’s uniform number. The MVP award, given this year to Los Angeles Clippers’ star forward Kawhi Leonard, was renamed permanently for Kobe Bryant. Pregame and half-time shows centered on Kobe, his family, and his impact on the sport of basketball and society. The collective grief and bereavement displayed by fans and players alike not only demonstrate the power of sports in American society, they’re indications of the sacrality…
Read More…federal identification document. The couple and their supporters said the city’s position was simply the latest example of the city’s unwillingness to perform a same-sex ceremony, and making demands that are not required of heterosexual couples. Kyrgyzstan: United Nations Human Rights Officials Urge Against Anti-Gay Bill The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has urged the government of Kyrgyzstan not to adopt the ant…
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…grants from their homes. They are pulled to the U.S. because of demand for cheap labor. One of the major pushes came in the ’90s with the passage of NAFTA, which opened the door to many agri-businesses to move farms down to Mexico, putting small farmers out of business. And while the number of undocumented border crossers is down, Brother David says, it will be virtually impossible to eliminate them as long as the opportunities for jobs exist. As…
Read More…tween the bunnies-and-eggs version of Easter, and the church-service version. Merchandisers are wise to define Easter by marshmallow chicks and colorful baskets, rather than bring theology into it. But there are always exceptions. One is the Oriental Trading Company. Founded to create cheap plastic toys for carnivals, OTC is now a leading supplier of cheap plastic stuff for church groups and Christian schools. Their party supply catalog always con…
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