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Spiritual Unplugging, Or What to Do When There is Wifi at the Ashram

By Matt Hamilton

…phone, but I found nothing. At first I laughed at my instinct, my muscle memory. The phone, with its glowing screen, gave me solace and control. But I was tied to my cushion for another hour, and in this ashram for another day, so email would have to wait. I panicked. My heart raced. Would my editor be asking for me? Would a reply from that politician’s secretary sit unanswered in my inbox? Was my updated resumé sent to that recruiter? Why waste t…

A Meditation on Shopping and Desire

By Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado

…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…

Are Evangelical Films Destined to Leave Secular Audiences Behind?

By Daniel Silliman

…ught the whole thing was preposterous. You couldn’t do both. They made the movie cheap and released it to the home market. It only had a limited run in theaters the following year Peter Lalonde said secular critics would “hammer us just because of the message” that Jesus is coming back. It made no sense to “Hollywood up” the movies with big budgets and a wide release. The Lalondes’ approach angered the authors of the books, Jerry Jenkins and Tim L…

The Faith that Faith Produced

By Haroon Moghul

…ell if you dispute his prescription. Many who question God’s existence are more concerned with His relevance to them than any metaphysics. We can only be free if we remove the shackles of faith, these self-ruining feelings of incompleteness, prudery and debasement, and accept the inevitability of our random lives. I don’t mean to be flippant. This is how it seemed to me, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t knock me off my feet. Why spend my exist…

Corporations Have Consciences and Contraceptives Are Cheap: Hobby Lobby at the Supreme Court

By Sarah Posner

…“not terribly expensive.” But Verilla pointed out that the IUD, one of the most effective methods of birth control, is also one of the most expensive. (They can cost as much as $1,000.) As expected, the Court did not question in any depth the companies’ claim that these methods are abortifacients. But in response to a hypothetical raised by Kennedy to Verrilli, that his reasoning would permit the government to mandate that religious entities pay f…

Our Failure To Understand Ferguson: A Cognitive Explanation

By Andrew Aghapour

…ed: they couldn’t facilitate bribery. We would have to buy new, full-price tickets to Iran. On the phone with JetBlue’s customer service line that night, my righteous fury dissipated quickly. Could JetBlue really be to blame for bad weather, or a mechanical problem, or whatever system error had made our flight impossible? Don’t I benefit regularly from this massive travel infrastructure that, like Lady Justice, doles its punishments out blindly? I…

RD News Round-Up—September 29, 2008

By Bill Berkowitz

…is happening, what causes it, and what to do about it.” Evangelicals are among the most skeptical population segments when it comes to global warming—just 27% firmly believe global warming is happening. In particular, evangelicals express the greatest caution regarding their perception that media has hyped the story (65%), their belief that cyclical climate change is not primarily caused by human activity (62%), and their concern that proposed so…

RD News Round-Up—September 22, 2008

By Bill Berkowitz

…527—an organization allowed to raise money from individuals in unlimited amounts—is Raymond Ruddy, who is described by Kuhnhein as “a prominent anti-abortion philanthropist in Massachusetts who supported Mitt Romney for president in the GOP primary.” ++++++++++ Focus on the Family doesn’t hate gays, says “ex-gay“ Melissa Fryrear, director of FotF’s gender issues department Eerily reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” speech, Melissa F…

News Round-Up: State of the Christian Movie

By Gwynne Watkins

…wait for that one. Via Buzzfeed’s Adam B. Vary, here’s a chart of Biblical movie box office numbers. “Biblical movie” is liberally defined here, but it’s interesting to note the difference between now and the “golden age” of Biblical epics (1949-1965). And finally, here’s an interesting piece by The Guardian’s Tom Shone, breaking down the obstacles filmmakers face in adapting the Bible. The biggest one, in his opinion: God is not a very good chara…

Mormon Women Knock at the Door, Are Turned Away

By Holly Welker

On October 5, 2013, almost 200 Mormon women gathered in downtown Salt Lake City on a sunny but crisp Saturday afternoon in order to seek admission to the priesthood session of the semi-annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Calling itself Ordain Women, the group had already requested and been denied tickets to Saturday evening’s male-only priesthood session. Nonetheless the women and their allies walked to t…