Religion Dispatches
…We have an unprecedented access to cheap goods, yet we must recognize that cheap goods are cheaply made. I am not speaking of quality, I am speaking of cheap labor. We must recognize that through the act of shopping, whether it is for an article of clothing, a toy, a pint of strawberries, or even our morning cup of coffee, we participate in a global economy that values profit over people. Disposable goods are made by disposable people, faceless in…
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…e success either. The opening weekend saw sales of more than $6 million in tickets. That’s the kind of number that will inspire others to try and figure out the formula for the faith-and-family blockbuster. Yet, with the cost of the film reportedly exceeding $30 million, it’s an open question whether or not the Left Behind reboot will get a second installment. The marketing problem of evangelical movies is still, stubbornly, a problem. The general…
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…ou’ll read an excerpt below—has surprised me, too. I wish I could find my airline companion and give him this book, to surprise him, too—in a good way. (I would accept Lakers tickets in lieu of apologies, but I think that particular era is done.) This whole book is a result of a profound evolution, and needs to be seen as such. American Muslims have gone through a lot over the last few decades. We were never the caricature Islamophobes made us ou…
Read MoreAt oral argument in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties, Inc. v. Sebelius this morning, the Supreme Court justices spent a great deal of time questioning the lawyers in the case about whether corporations have a religious conscience, and whether Congress intended to protect it when enacting the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). What was most striking, though, was how all three female justices, Sonia So…
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…te segregation and economic favoritism. When I spoke with Rothstein on the phone, he underscored the long-term effects of this last policy. During the 1940s and 1950s, suburban subdivisions were built in St. Louis, and throughout the country, using federal loans stipulating that no homes be sold to African Americans. Priced at about $125,000 in today’s dollars, these were affordable—with a mortgage—to working class families, black or white. Yet bl…
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…blic library needs to serve them all. Serve everyone in the community.” The 2019 Project The playbook for the 2019-2020 state legislative session was different from its predecessors in that it focused solely on bills related to sexual orientation and gender identity, or “SOGI.” These same bills and supporting materials appear in the previous as well as the current 2020-21 playbooks. Nevertheless, the model bills, talking points and fact sheets pre…
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…ment of 50,000, as if the faithful at church. The devotion was audible, as tickets were distributed to friends of the Cuban government and not through a public sale. Here the religious nature of the Cuban sporting event is acknowledged only to be dismissed as inauthentic. The patriotic, quasi-religious crooning is suspicious because of its apparent production by the Cuban government, which distributed tickets to friends. Morosi recognizes religiou…
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…ust be made to enforce it. In the April 2007 priesthood session, a musical number was provided by a men’s chorus. The chorus was selected and trained by Brigham Young University professor Rosalind Hall, who also chose the music for the choir—but Hall was not allowed to attend the performance; instead, she was replaced by a male colleague, Ronald Staheli, for that one event. In fact, Hall was not even allowed to be in the conference hall to hear he…
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In the second act of William Shakespeare’s Henry V, the bawdy barmaid Mistress Quickly delivers a eulogy for one of the playwright’s most immediate, modern, and visceral of characters. Speaking of Sir John Falstaff, who drank, thieved, embellished, and joked across both Henry IV Part 1 and Part II, the proprietor of the Boar’s Head Inn assures us “Nay, sure, he’s not in hell! He’s in Arthur’s bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom.” Mistress Q…
Read MoreAmerica, if it is anything, has always been a land in need of prophets. How could it be otherwise for a place that espouses the loftiest of missions while so often existing in violation of that very same mission? The task of the prophet is to exist in that chasm between a nation’s ideals and its realities; to be a witness against hypocrisy and injustice, but to do so in a manner that doesn’t indulge in that soothing narcotic of cynicism. A prophe…
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