Religion Dispatches
…her than try to change God’s standards” (1-14-08). 6.) TOP TEN COMPARISONS BETWEEN RELIGION AND DENTISTRY: Between Google ads for “oral sedation” and “dental fear,” blogger Mark Wright writes thoughtfully about many things. On this list he points out, helpfully, that “Both Dentistry and Religion benefit financially from your sins” and reminds us that “In Religion there is the promise of Heaven. In Dentistry there is only Hell.” 7.) BOOKLIST’S TOP…
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…s?” Or does it cause me to view the Bible as merely another supernatural mythos lying behind a fantasy-based experience that distracts me from ordinary daily responsibilities or activities? I won’t be able to resist entering the fray when the beta version is released today, if only to see how we as a culture we are trying to figure out the relationship between play, theology, and performance of belief. If you’re curious to learn of my progress, yo…
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…l world with adolescence hints at this as a kind of rite of passage—a time betwixt and between childhood and full adult responsibilities. Much like game worlds, it occurs within a space where actions have been stripped of real-world consequences, though from the first, we discover that Zoe has discovered ways to make what happens in this space count: she’s turned to it as a space of religious conversion and political activism. One of the recurring…
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…; what I don’t know is whether some of the activists I’ve met would be any better in your tailor-made shoes. Yet it is you who abide the slander whenever someone claims that a more equitable distribution of wealth would retard society by “killing incentive.” In other words, without the motive of making a bundle, people like you wouldn’t be able to get out of bed. Some of us work to be creative and socially useful, but you guys are made of coarser…
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…produce that person’s number. Here’s an example of gematria using an alphabet we’re more familiar with, the Roman alphabet. Say someone’s name was Vic. Each letter in his name is also a Roman numeral. V=5, I=1, C=100. Using gematria, we find that Vic’s number is 5+1+100, or 106. So whose name adds up to 666? Most biblical scholars believe the beast was the Roman emperor Nero. Nero’s title in Latin was Caesar Nero. The equivalent in Greek, the lan…
Read More…Jews, like members of all the other religious minorities, recognize a bad bet for religious freedom when they see one. They see how Trump treats Muslims, Mormons, and Hispanics, and they know his commitment to them is thinner than his actual hair. Anyway, you might say it’s only one state, but it’s also the one state with a sizable Jewish population and an uncertain outcome. There’s no way Trump is winning in New York or New Jersey, and if he doe…
Read More…mockery he has now attracted, this relatively obscure congressman whom I’d bet half the pundits discussing his fate today had barely heard of before his primary win, is a National Superstar, the very embodiment of the Christian Right’s all-too-often abandoned determination to stand up to GOP pols who forever pay them lip service but rarely deliver the goods. […] And if he does win, he will enter the Senate next year not as some random wingnut dude…
Read More…ngelical feminists argue that the Bible actually teaches mutual submission between men and women. But Reconstructionists, some of whom have influenced Bachmann, have suggested that, given the biblical order for families, women probably shouldn’t be voting. I wrote about Reconstructionist biblical patriarchy here. While Christians traditionally hold that God is beyond gender (even while often using masculine language for God), in “The Tenets of Bib…
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…y.” “Controversial” and “problematic” are hardly exaggerations; sandwiched between Sunday-school standbys like David and Goliath, Mary and Joseph, and Psalm 23 are plenty of stories that aren’t often preached from the pulpit. These stories, featured on the cards of A Game for Good Christians, range from bizarre (“Death by hungry worms, Acts 12:21-23”), to disgusting (“Bread freshly baked with human dung, Ezekiel 4:12”), to truly horrifying (“God-s…
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…ing to look like?” when it comes to Taqwacore. I can’t tell the future any better than Basim or Shahj can really judge how many people are actually fans of the book and their music. Q: The virtual aspect of Taqwacore allows for greater international access to the music and discussion of TQ bands. Do you believe that TQ is having an impact outside of the United States? If so, what? Why do you think it is having an appeal? If not, why? Is it the mus…
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