Religion Dispatches
…r of Muslims, but it was New York that did that. The city of my birth, the city under attack, was also the city that refused to retreat into cowardice. I have nearly a dozen stories of people who said to me, in either words or deeds, that if you are a New Yorker, it does not matter your faith; come and grieve with us. I traveled the country giving talks about Muslims after 9/11, but the safest, warmest, and most trusting I ever felt was in New Yor…
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…ile the evocation of the specter of sexual terrorism in the statehouses of Colorado, Utah and Oklahoma is a vivid example of this loose relationship with reality, perhaps the most disturbing expression of it can be found in an hour-long “documentary” produced by the American Family Association and hosted by conservative media personality Janet Parshall. “Speechless: Silencing the Christians,” which premiered last March on the Inspiration Network,…
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…ted to get the kids thinking,” they told me. When I wondered if purchasing tickets for the kids using Salvation Army funds could be a violation of the church’s tax-exempt status, Miranda argued that she didn’t see a problem. Since the Bible is applicable to every facet of private and public life, she reasoned, how it would be possible to talk to the kids about anything government-related without jeopardizing their tax-exemption? “Our hands would b…
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…connection, once burning with possibility and joy, began to cool, as cell phone calls dwindled and numbers eventually changed or were disconnected. As our shared realities drifted apart in their likeness, like Pigpen, I also turned to technologies that promised connection to try to tamp down the yearning and temper that sense of loss. Where Pigpen called up the trusty telephone operator, I did my pining alone, with only the camaraderie of a searc…
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…a senior editor at the South China Morning Post, criticized the Hong Kong city government for its “lukewarm” response to the city’s selection as the host of the 2022 Gay Games, which will make it the first Asian city to host the event: It goes to show that officials pay lip service when it comes to supporting the city as a diverse and inclusive society. They only boast about how multicultural the community is or take pride in identifying Hong Kon…
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…ans would be attracted to, appreciate and consider careers in science (the number is decreasing annually). I bet we’d have more productive conversation among students and leaders of science and religion around the many profound issues in our nation that engage both: abortion, medical care, stem cells, homosexuality, and genomic research. The battle rhetoric would fade and, more than likely, movies like Expelled wouldn’t be made in the first place….
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…I fervently wish that Mr. Obama would say a bit more about the problem of cheap grace. Reminding us that people who work very hard for very little are not the abusers of cheap grace, but that others in well-feathered nests who are preaching sacrifice might be in real trouble on the cheap grace front. Obama cannot and should not condemn those in the electorate who buy into Romney’s “there will be showers of blessing” message, but he probably does …
Read More…Barack Obama. Antisemitism is a serious, real thing. When it is used as a cheap shot—as when pro-Palestinian advocates throw around terms like “Nazi” and “concentration camp”—it is an offense against all those who were murdered over the centuries. Diluting the meaning of the term ‘antisemitism’ is, itself, antisemitic. Second, as I described in a recent post, there is indeed a structural similarity between some of the Occupy movement’s concerns a…
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…a high priest, my aunt a former Relief Society president. Gary’s is an old Salt Lake family with generations in the Church. One of his brothers is a branch president of a Spanish branch in Salt Lake, and the other is a former bishop and current temple worker. Gary’s nephews and nieces have served missions in Ireland, Italy, Argentina, Ethiopia, and Thailand. You can’t just leave Mormonism behind when you have that kind of connection. I’m a writer…
Read More…ng inside LDS Church headquarters. [UPDATE: The LDS Newsroom disputed the Salt Lake Tribune’s report that the language of the statement had been changed, explaining that there have been instead “two statements address[ing] different questions being asked throughout the day by multiple media outlets.”] That’s because the debate within Mormon communities about Scouting reflects rapidly shifting conversations within Mormonism about the place of gay…
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