Religion Dispatches
…rience earlier this year when I had a short stint as a visiting scholar in Australia. I am naturally a very, very fast talker. But I have to really slow down when in most international contexts. I’m used it. I started living abroad 35 years ago and so my sense of Islam in the world is shaped by the world, not just some ideal of the world. Last night and when I was in Australia, I found I got more said in a short period of time than I could in most…
Read More
…e coast, the famous Highway One. Earlier this year when I spent a month in Australia, including a stint at University of Melbourne, I took a day tour along the Great Ocean Road. I learned that its architect of it had been inspired by our own Highway One. Both are stunning testaments to the majesty of God’s creation. Ocean, sand, rocks, mountains, cliffs, trees, farms, animals, strawberries, well there were lots of organic strawberry farms this mor…
Read More
…n our side. Number 1 could be “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Number 2: “God doesn’t discriminate.” Number 3: “Sex is only for procreation.” And so on. We could get clever, of course, and assign separate groups of numbers to arguments pro and con or to thematic clusters. I can even imagine some seminary librarian proposing a sort of Dewey Decimal System to organize the arguments. This would allow long series of arguments to be cited b…
Read More
…connection, once burning with possibility and joy, began to cool, as cell phone calls dwindled and numbers eventually changed or were disconnected. As our shared realities drifted apart in their likeness, like Pigpen, I also turned to technologies that promised connection to try to tamp down the yearning and temper that sense of loss. Where Pigpen called up the trusty telephone operator, I did my pining alone, with only the camaraderie of a searc…
Read More…begins another great Saw Doctors’ song, referring to the famous pilgrimage site where villagers saw the Virgin Mary in the late 19th century, and where pilgrims come from around the world to await miracles. Just last year, a Dublin man named Joe Coleman gathered hundreds of believers at Knock to await another apparition. “Can you tell me who the villains are?” the Saw Doctors go on to ask. The answer is obvious to an Irish band: self-proclaimed fa…
Read More
…ysteries of these creatures. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. A large number of the “spiritual but not religious” crowd in the West are self-proclaimed ecologists or naturalists. A large number of atheists and agnostics are deeply passionate about ecological ethics, or how we might be more “in tune” with nature. Culturally, they become fascinated in the personalities of cats and cat videos, the companionship of dogs who offer a kind of faithf…
Read More…e 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 beliefs of not altering her body image. Unaware that others around him might practice faiths be…
Read More
…ideo mocks Islam but not Muslim people, it has been allowed to stay on the site in most of the world: “This video—which is widely available on the Web—is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube,” it said. Google is, in effect, walking a precarious line between advocacy of free speech and incitement to violence. Blocking the video might encourage copycat endeavors to prohibit other material, yet most would no doubt agree that end…
Read More
…in mind. I can name the people who were my imagined audience. I have their numbers in my cell phone. There are, of course, lots of other people I would invite to eavesdrop on this solipsistic soliloquy. I’d like Bataille scholars to read the book. I’d like people who’ve never heard of Bataille to read the book. I’d like feminist and queer theologians—and those scholars who study queer theory—to read it. And if a serious scholar of Bacon’s or Mappl…
Read More…in 2000. Kaylor wrote, “You were correct to connect the news about Perry’s phone call with Robison’s effort in 1980. In fact, the connection is much stronger.” Kaylor reported in June that although Robison denied that his group was supporting a particular candidate—in fact, the group was divided over who to support, as was the religious right leadership in 2008—the televangelist appears to be a prime motivator of Perry’s prayer rally scheduled for…
Read More