Religion Dispatches
…aimed as our sanctuaries. I mean the bars. The clubs. The dives and disco palaces that always used to be on the seedier fringe of town but that now often claim pride of place on respectable blocks. Clubs that often used to be owned and run by the mob, i.e., the kind of management that knows how to manage things with the cops. When I was young and looked really good in 501s I would spend more late Saturday/early Sunday hours than I care to remember…
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…many churches, the UCB give a percentage of their budget to charitable causes aligned with their beliefs, though they remain volunteer based with no paid church staff. For those who compare the United Church of Bacon with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, another atheism-inspired church with similar goals, Prophet John notes “bacon can be proven to exist, but we have no evidence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.” They are cool with the pa…
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…nd the Warlocks became the Grateful Dead. #6 : “Ripple” is a Spiritual Manifesto by Jim Burklo The Dead sang, plucked, and pounded inexorably onward toward a palpably approaching ecstasy with no knowable when, where, or how… #7 : I Love You More Than Words Can Tell by David Vanderveen It takes humility to admit that we don’t have the answers, that our models aren’t truth itself and that the palaces we build to the religions we’re born into are fai…
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…there was the social media furor about Starbucks’ red cups, as Ed Simon relates here in RD. Then this month, 36 Republican U.S. House members introduced a resolution “that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected for use by those who celebrate Christmas.” And in the most recent CNN-sponsored debate among Republican presidential candidates, Wolf Blitzer’s closing Merry Christmas wish prompted two Fox News hosts to declare victor…
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…y? I assume the question keeps arising because I am a religious studies professor who included a chapter about Thanksgiving in my recent book, America’s Favorite Holidays: Candid Histories. Of course the answer depends on how you define the terms and also on some history. I’d make three points. First of all, it is clear that the American Thanksgiving has Puritan roots. This is ironic, because New England Puritans were the very people who opposed a…
Read More…it was very hard to go back to the traditional mosque.” An immigrant from Malaysia to Los Angeles, Zonneveld wanted a faith community that took to heart the call to social justice work and critical thinking she found in the Qur’an. She began organizing meet-ups for progressive Muslims who felt unsatisfied in their traditional faith communities. “I discovered there were other pockets of like-minded Muslims who had also established communities. So…
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…f restorationism—whether it’s theological, cultural, political, or ecological—all of which revolves around a single question: what, exactly, is the future of the past? How to engineer a hairy elephant “Mammoth cloning is not going to happen,” Shapiro writes in How to Clone a Mammoth. But don’t be disappointed. Geneticists can probably still bring them back. Shapiro is a lucid, relaxed, and often hilarious guide to the strange world of people who t…
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…the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, a nationally recognized fine arts camp in Sitka, Alaska. The opportunity allowed students a peek inside professional illustration, how to approach and research an idea taken from a rough draft, and then how to edit and prepare the illustration for publication while incorporating feedback from the editors of the Cubit. For more on blame, read the introductory post or explore the full series. Dear World, On behalf of the wo…
Read MoreThis week’s allegations of predatory sexual behavior toward children by Alabama Republican Senate nominee, Roy Moore, are suffused with Christmas spirit, and I don’t just mean the detail that one of the 14-year-old girls he propositioned and later “dated” against her mother’s will had been working as a Santa’s Helper at the mall when she first caught his eye. Incredibly, Moore’s evangelical defenders are turning to the original Christmas story of…
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…an’ to be queer.” Owunna grew up “with tremendous anxiety from constantly balancing being both Nigerian and queer,” writes Karlan. Owunna was outed to his parents at the age of 15 and they responded with “a barrage of homophobia” and even told him his identity was “un-African.” They believed their son had been corrupted growing up in America. “For several years I was sent back to Nigeria during holidays, with the hope that re-immersing me in my cu…
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