Religion Dispatches
…side of Temple Square, cheerfully singing hymns from the screens of their iPhones or from green-backed hymnals, while a clutch of protestors—evangelical Christians, mostly, the same familiar, ragged gang materializing every conference—takes its place behind barricades on a small patch of grass. A stranger, upon learning that I don’t have one of the highly-coveted tickets to the Sunday Conference sessions, spontaneously offers me his last extra. Mi…
Read More
…est rates and so little to unemployment these days? Rather than crunch the numbers, the rigorist wing of an emerging Republicanity in the budget brouhaha has been content to say that it’s high time for the federal government to start behaving more responsibly—like its most responsible citizens do, sitting around the kitchen table fussing over the monthly bills. (One might observe that a great many of the nation’s citizens seem to behave more like…
Read More
…in the early nineties for most people consisted largely of acquiring plane tickets, reading relatively static documents, and emailing acquaintances. By 2004, the year before John Paul died, search engines had become sophisticated and powerful, and the immensely popular online world Second Life was in its third year. MySpace had appeared the year before, and Mark Zuckerberg was feverishly writing the code that would become Facebook. YouTube was ju…
Read More
…opiate of the masses. But wait: Diener’s research also indicates that the dominant religious orientation of a culture pressures subcultures into conformance despite their less happy circumstances. In Western societies like Britain and the United States, the affluence of the powerful few, uninterested with religion as they happily are, shapes the norms of religious participation for the society as a whole. The effect is to minimize the role of rel…
Read More
…public relations success, not to say coup, that the papacy of Pope Francis represents. I am not suggesting that there is no substance to Francis’ agenda, that change does not underlie it. Conservatives would not be so hot under their collective collars if that were not the case. But I am cognizant of the very powerful public relations machine that has turned an ecclesial ocean liner on a dime, transformed an all but written-off patriarchy into one…
Read More…osophy of history, leaves no other way to understand it—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Huckabee seems to be selling tickets on the Titanic….
Read More…the marble façade of formal democracy, but these well-fed people in no way represent us. They represent the fixers and the string pullers. The ancient Hebrew prophets would have something to day about this. “Hear this, you cows of Bashan who are on Mount Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy…Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood and bring righteousness to the ground!” That’s Amos. Or for a prophet nearer to our own time—and one who sa…
Read More…s Ark, which developers claim will be built to scale, there will also be a replica of the Tower of Babel, a walled city similar to ancient times, live animal shows and a children’s play area and a 1st Century Medieval Village. There will be no roller coasters or other thrill rides. AIG’s partner in the theme park project, Ark Encounter LLC, is a for-profit business based in Missouri. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear attended the press conference, prais…
Read More…of protest is to wear the niqab and nothing else. Then, the women will get tickets, not for being nude, but for being clothed. In my opinion, that would show the absolute absurdity of the state trying to control women’s dress. I have written elsewhere that this sort of action, of controlling a woman’s body, is simply male penis worship run amok. These ladies, who call themselves Niqabitches, have done a great service in showing the inherent contra…
Read More…half. There were still probably 80 empty seats, and it was clear that some number of attendees had free tickets. The largest financial supporter of the event was a local news/talk radio station and its representatives were the only media allowed in. As I arrived with my Religion Dispatches press badge they stopped me before I even got to the door. I chatted with an AP reporter and he said AP had been trying for weeks to gain media access—but that…
Read More