Religion Dispatches
…g as a resource/publications specialist for the ex-gay organization Exodus International. These seminars, most led by former TG/TS folk who had come to accept their birth gender, were geared to give hope to those struggling with their gender identity and seeking change to live a “biblical lifestyle,” which constituted heterosexual marriage or celibacy. Andrew Marin, founder of evangelical-based The Marin Foundation has been working for over ten ye…
Read More…aking of poor judgment, a non-denominational Florida church plans to host “International Burn a Qur’an Day” on the anniversary of 9/11. The same Gainesville church made news in the past with its “No Homo Mayor” signs opposing an openly gay mayor. Lt. Governor of South Carolina André Bauer discusses how he uses shoes to save souls. New York Governor David Paterson denied reports that he had swapped Judaism for his Catholic faith. However, Gwyneth P…
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…r. The New York Times emphasizes the “clash of civilizations” myth in this ruling, without really thinking through the implications or causes of the ban 30 years after the revolution. These two elements, the Green Movement and the European marginalization of their Muslim communities, demonstrate how weak and ineffectual the current Iranian regime is. The result is they are emulating the Saudis and using faith as a cudgel to demonstrate that they d…
Read More…Anglican traditionalists, the Church of England is moving one step closer to the ordination of women bishops; a move that some fear will further fracture an Anglican Communion already split along international faultlines over the ordination of gay clergy. Will diverging perspectives on gender and sexuality determine the shape of the 21st-century Christian world?…
Read More…etimes willfully insulting portrayals of Islam and Muslims that bombard us today in our increasingly polarized times. A recent episode from Western political life was for me especially reminiscent of the uglier side of the debates of Luther’s time. A Swedish newspaper published a political cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad worthy of the vile anti-Semitic tracts that have blighted Christian-Jewish relations for centuries. Not so long ago, Jews were r…
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…e, this study uses them as windows into the incalculable sites of the construction, dissemination, and practice of yoga. I had to carefully select from case studies in my effort to demonstrate that the postural practice we most associate with yoga today underwent global popularization as it coincided with transnational cultural developments. What are some of the biggest misconceptions about your topic? Given that we see yoga practically everywher…
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…ore. More than that, the nature of everyday life for most of us in America today is deadly for the world around us. The machines that facilitate our daily life exploit the fossil fuel spoils of the underworld, slowly turning the planet into a kind of living hell. Anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose knew that, even if many of us choose to ignore that it’s happening; phenomena like mass species extinctions are affecting us deeply. Rose argued that in t…
Read More…rket. But it does seem that the two opposing traditions have come together today to act as a powerful rhetoric of gratitude as indebtedness. Today we have a thriving self-help industry that churns out a steady stream of books on pop psychology, happiness, and gratitude. How well do these grapple with the issues you’ve raised? I was a little surprised by how little attention is paid to the history of gratitude in the self-help literature. I see my…
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…part of religious faith, but I don’t believe you can really argue that the world’s most violent actors today aren’t religious. 2. A still-raw rift over government’s role that has deep religious roots There’s no end of bloviation about divided government in the U.S., but I want to suggest that the deeper source of conflict is religious or at least religiously infused. Competing religious visions about how life among Europeans in North America shoul…
Read More…in their employee health plans. Opposition to the memo, also known as the World Vision Memo, has thus attracted a larger coalition. Organizations signing today’s letter include Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, a number of Christian Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, secular, and atheist groups, as well as legal advocates, abortion rights advocates, and LGBT groups. According to the letter, the…
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