Religion Dispatches
…one, that new gadget, that new dress. And yet the minute you purchase your phone or laptop, it is obsolete. Every six months, fashion editors tell us our entire closet is out—our clothing is disposable. Shopping is not only a lifestyle, it is a form of entertainment. Whether it is infomercials and shopping networks or makeover shows, we not only shop, we watch people shop. The act of shopping has also become increasingly depersonalized. In the age…
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…lice reportedly detained the pair at a bus stop and confiscated Mr. Cole’s phone. They then used images they found on the phone as evidence to arrest and convict Mr. Cole for homosexuality. Homosexuality is a criminal offense in Morocco, and relations outside of marriage can also be punishable by law. Italy: Mayors Resisting National Govt on Registering Gay Couples Several mayors are pledging to disobey the Interior Minister’s announcement that ga…
Read More…pean_douchebag” wasn’t questioning which game the woman was playing on her phone, he was referencing the abundance of facial hair on the young woman’s face—a nod towards her Sikh beliefs of not altering her body image. Unaware that others around him might practice faiths besides his own, “european_douchebag” posted the picture under the Reddit tab “Funny,” hoping to get an elbow-in-the-side snickering reaction from the online community. But what h…
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…e, isolated, backward. I offered this concern to Bell when we spoke on the phone. He responded thoughtfully, but cautiously. “Oh yeah. See the thing is: we actually do have real, life-or-death problems going on. And many of us are totally convinced that this” (he meant the stated reason for the law, the phantom possibility of trans, or fake-trans, people preying on young women in bathrooms) “is not one of them.” True enough, but to say that HB2 is…
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…he cancer that had crawled across his body, had lain in bed at home with a phone against his ear while my pastor, who had called him from the pulpit, pointed a cordless phone toward the congregation; we all wept and sang him love songs as he lay dying. These are uniquely evangelical experiences that shaped me, that will always be a part of me. I still long for this kind of community—the kind that journeys together through all the peaks and valleys…
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…o a local electronics store to get the ubiquitous, and indispensable, cell phone, when I was approached by a Libyan customer. After learning that I was an American he said “Thank you for helping liberate my country from the dreaded dictator, Gaddafi. May he burn in hell! And as for those who killed your ambassador, may they burn in hell with him!” “They are a disgrace,” he said of the makers of the inflammatory video, “but they are not the cause…
Read More…tors are caught in the middle, and the voters themselves are… well… making phone calls and holding marches, because what else is there to do? (When I called the office of one member of the Public Health Committee to register my opposition to SB-1433, the staffer on the phone said, “Goodness, it seems like everyone in Oklahoma is calling.” I wearily replied that most of the calls must be in support of the bill, right? “Oh, no,” she said. “Against i…
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…f the church in our spiritual-but-not-religious age. Do you think that the American church can recover from it? I think it depends on whether the American church decides to live into an identity that affirms the love of God for all people. It’s not like it’s a wound from the past. It’s a wound in the present. Everyone wants live into Easter, but no one wants to be on Good Friday. Everyone wants to live in Resurrection, but no one wants to recogniz…
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…anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred and sixty-six.” The author of Revelation meant that 666 was a person’s name turned into a number via the Jewish numerological practice of gematria. Since every Hebrew letter was also a number, the letters of a name could be added up to produce that person’s number. Here’s an example of gematria using an alphabet we’re more famil…
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…ugh for us to talk honestly about socially regressive attitudes within the American Muslim community? The reality is that homophobia in the American Muslim community very likely played a causal role in producing Omar Mateen’s hate crime. It certainly wasn’t the only source of homophobic bigotry influencing him, but it was one such source, and that is reason enough for American Muslims to resist the anti-gay sentiment in their mosques and community…
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