Religion Dispatches
…rocessions run red lights and stop signs. Cars straddle multiple lanes and command oncoming traffic to stop out of respect for the deceased and the mourners. The unique quality of the event allows for these transgressions to occur, creating what anthropologists refer to as “liminal” spaces—threshold events, existing just at that moment when people cross from one defined space to another. Like a funeral procession, our ride inverted all established…
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…,” because of the politics of its use in the west. I gave my own title: pro-faith, pro-feminist. I was adamant that I would not bargain one against the other. This is probably because in the context of the west, the first time we begin to hear about Muslim women, we hear about them from some one other than Muslim women. Muslim men or non-Muslim women were our chief spokespersons. When that shifted, a strange and depressing trend took over: Muslim…
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…white lines that are drawn between conceptions of good and evil make it all-too-easy to apply these dualisms to groups of people. When theologies leave no room for ambiguity, mystery and uncertainty, it becomes very easy to identify an “us” (good, heterosexual) versus a “them” (evil, gay). Additionally, hierarchical conceptions of value and worth are implicit in many of our theological notions. Needless to say, value and worth are not distributed…
Read More…ng the Arabic of the Qur’an which matter little if you are an Arab or a non-Arab competent to read Arabic. For one thing, the Arabic of the Qur’an is not spoken by anyone. I could say not spoken by anyone anymore, but I would rather say not spoken by anyone ever. It is much closer to the Arabic spoken at the time of the Prophet. But a careful study of ahadith, statements recorded and passed down from that time, and of the Arabic of the Qur’an, ind…
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…nd Pornography for Plants,” which closed last week at Louis V E.S.P., a not-for-profit gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Because of the accelerating expansion of the universe, he figures we’re basically doomed, since every particle will—eventually—be so far from every other particle that there will be no form, no structure, no nothing. “It seems like now might be a very good time for God to start making new universes that don’t have this design flaw.” He p…
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…r 21, 2010, Catholics for Choice reported that the Pope Benedict XVI, in a book-length interview, said that condom use to prevent the transmission of HIV is “a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more humane sexuality.” The 1966 majority report of the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control, contradicted by Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae, also agreed that contraception can and should be allowed according to the Roman Catholi…
Read More…ligious leaders and lawmakers collaborated in the creation of a principled new Utah Compact on immigration reform heralded as a timely departure from the dead-end extremism of Arizona’s SB 1070 and praised nationwide as a model of “good sense and sanity.” What works so well about the Utah approach to immigration? It demonstrates respect for the seriousness of the issue by modeling civil collaboration. It acknowledges the reality of a complex globa…
Read More…iage.” One of those “torrent[s] of… hatred” happened recently as Gallagher testified before a House committee on the Defense of Marriage Act. GetEqual cornered Gallagher in the hallway on the way to the hearing to give her an “Anita Bryant Bigotry Award” for “her work to undermine and overturn progress toward recognizing LGBT Americans as human beings,” the certificate read. Gallagher calmly accepted the “award” — verbally sparring a bit with the…
Read More…rgeted African-American male athletes. Critics of Smith’s findings have contested the quality of his statistical data and pointed out that the most egregious “bait and switch” recruitment of non-LDS athletes of color—including procurement of women and alcohol to entice recruits—took place under former coach Gary Crowton, not current coach Bronco Mendenhall. (Smith’s Deadspin article was based on statistics compiled from public records of Honor Cod…
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…ards, hold public events, lobby, and do everything possible to enter into public conversation on religion. And there is benefit to this, but non-theists of all kinds will continue to struggle and work within an environment composed of competing claims. And while increasing public attention on the limits of theism, it might be a good idea to also do a bit of work to provide a ‘home’ for all those “Nones” who can’t stand the idea of church….
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