Religion Dispatches
…But, with all due respect to Ecclesiastes, digital technology is something new under the sun. Laws about stealing, and lying, and loving one’s neighbor aren’t so easy to apply to issues of global connectedness and digital privacy. Back in June, writing about the NSA surveillance scandal, Daniel Schultz pointed out in Christian Century that: there has been minimal reaction by religious groups. A quick survey of eight denominations found that only o…
Read More
…w Torba. The Tree of Life Synagogue shooter was, not coincidentally, a Gab user. Under pressure, Mastriano eventually cut ties with Gab, but as a Christian nationalist gubernatorial candidate, he remains a threat to democracy. The point in adducing these examples and tracing their connections is not that most individual evangelical churches have direct ties to groups like the Proud Boys or that they provide direct support for prominent state or na…
Read More
…inker, but also holds the respect of fairly conservative Zionists like The New Republic’s Martin Peretz. So what was this about? As Colin Powell put it when he declared his support for Obama, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being an American Muslim—but to suggest as much is. To go one step further and target a secular, educated Arab American as though he embodied of every possible concern ‘average Americans’and Jews supposedly have about Mu…
Read More…ed in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the New Republic, Salon, and other outlets. Exvangelicals were even featured in Newsweek twice, including in the cover article of the print edition for December 21. The biggest exvangelical media breakthrough thus far, however, is surely the CBS special “Deconstructing My Religion,” written and produced by Liz Kineke, and which began running on CBS affiliate stations earlier th…
Read More
…struggling with his own sexuality as he frequented the nightclub and was a user of gay dating apps. To many this may muddy his motives, but only if one doesn’t understand the history of jihadism. Jihadism is a particular strain of political and social reform that emerges as an anti-colonial movement in the Muslim world. In response to the threat of European hegemony, jihadism resisted violently and through that violence sought to reform the Muslim…
Read More
…meditative music. Interestingly, with this digital Stations presentation, user interactivity is elevated to another level online, with enhanced visual and sensory appeals. Media spectacle here is presented as a Web version of the Stations of the Cross, and believers are urged to click and “pray as you go” online. To be sure, narratives have historically been powerful to satiate human urges for meaning, security, and belonging. Today, the communal…
Read MoreLast week, the aptly-titled Reddit user “european_douchebag” posted a candid photo on the online community site. The image, of a young Sikh woman playing with her phone while waiting in line, included the caption “i’m not sure what to conclude from this.” No, “european_douchebag” wasn’t questioning which game the woman was playing on her phone, he was referencing the abundance of facial hair on the young woman’s face—a nod towards her Sikh belief…
Read More
…l prophecy. Gallups’ videos appear on the channel of the anonymous YouTube user ppsimmons, and his theories are being promoted by Special Guests, a service that books conservative guests on talk radio, which is also plugging Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, in connection with Gallups’ videos. As I wrote yesterday, Pratt told me last summer he is a “Biblical Christian” and insists that state militias need to be “given new l…
Read MoreUser Ramona at TPMCafe reacts to Wednesday’s health care reform conference call between Pres. Obama and religious leaders: What struck me about this entire event — these thousands of religious leaders conferring with the president about how best to use their community to do good works — is how little we’ve heard from these people, as opposed to those leaders on the Religious Right who use their names and their clout to fight any attempt to rein i…
Read More
…this case, the “Twitness,” has emerged to shape the blogosphere, creating new faith connections. Twitter asks the simple question: “What are you doing?” Some evangelical Christian groups are harnessing these coincident messaging flows to strengthen their religious communication via synchronized prayer. Consider the Calvin Institute of Worship’s setup of an automated Twitter feed to “pray the hours.” Inspired by the Holy Scripture’s injunctions to…
Read More