Search Results for:

VIPREG2024 1x bet promo code Oman

Lifestyles of the Rich and Pious

…dinal and Francis ally Sean O’Malley over for the weekend. The Franciscan lives in a “rundown rectory” in Boston’s South End. I bet he would love the hot tub….

Read More

Experimental Theater Meets Experimental Faith: The Wooster Group’s “Early Shaker Spirituals”

…y, museum, and shop, The Wooster Group has also struggled with the tension between a somewhat Spartan existence and the temptations of commerce—Willem Dafoe, founding company member, left the group, and his relationship with Liz LeCompte, supposedly lured by Hollywood fame. Meanwhile, The Wooster Group recently attracted bona fide movie star Frances McDormand to join their ranks, as an “associate.” Four women (McDormand, LeCompte, Suzzy Roche, and…

Read More

‘Good Wife’ Alicia Florrick is an Atheist (and Drinks a Lot)

…peats that she is a straight up atheist, not agnostic, not wondering. Safe bet that this is the most often the word ‘atheist’ has been used in a single episode of a network drama. The wrinkle is that her daughter is part of a youth-y evangelical group, having converted a few seasons back. The writers use her for comic effect sometimes, as when the grownups are in crisis around the kitchen table and you suddenly hear a group of teenage girls beltin…

Read More

How Would Religion Respond to Extraterrestrials? A Thought Experiment

…changes such radical discoveries might manifest in religion? I’m going to bet that religion is not going to disappear. If anything, the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence might look a bit like the sixteenth century, when Europeans first began to grapple with the fact that the western hemisphere contained two massive continents with millions of inhabitants. But, as to specifics: how could Christians maintain the special election of humanit…

Read More

Is Refusal to Write Anti-Gay Cake Message a Violation of Religious Freedom?

…ceremony, etc.). And that’s probably not an accident; if I were a betting woman, I’d bet heavily that a pro-religious-exemption think tank or law firm, like the Becket Fund, had come up with this plan and recruited a plaintiff to set it in motion. The involvement of the local politicians mentioned in the story is likely strategic as well: Talking Points Memo quotes an “anti-gay” state lawmaker who says he supports the baker’s right to not print me…

Read More

Anti-Vaxxers Illustrate Danger of Overly Broad Religious Freedom Laws

…ed into the legislative history of each of these laws, I think it’s a fair bet that when they were passed the religious exemptions were intended to protect a very small percentage of the population with religious objections to vaccination, like Christian Scientists or some parts of the Amish community. It’s unlikely that the exemptions were intended to be used by the growing number of well-educated and well-off parents whose version of a “natural”…

Read More

Vatican Council on Women Would Be Funny Were it Not So Insulting

…n see if we all agree on how things work. I doubt it, and I know there are better ways to organize even a billion plus member organization. There are simply no excuses for duplicity, power grabs, and hierarchies, and none are accepted. Thirty years ago women focused on equality in U.S. church and society. Today that expectation remains largely unfulfilled around the world. The institutional Roman Catholic Church is widely seen as the epitome of ma…

Read More

Before Oprah, There Was the “Hour of Power”: Crystal Cathedral Pastor Robert H. Schuller Has Died

…ed for bankruptcy, eventually reaching a $57.5 million agreement with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange to purchase the gleaming architectural icon of American Protestantism. Exterior of the Crystal Cathedral, 2007. Image via Wiki Commons. The elder Schuller preached his last sermon at the cathedral in 2012, when he and his wife, Arvella, resigned from active ministry. Their remaining congregation, known as Shepherd’s Grove, moved into a decomm…

Read More

The Man in the Red Dress: My Unlikely Friendship with Cardinal Francis George

…u say, ‘Well, that’s not so!’ You try to be polite, but people should know better,” he told me once as we discussed what he called “wrong ideas about God.” “Christ is not an idea. Christ is a person. But ideas about him are very important. If you have a wrong idea, that stops your growth in God,” he said. “People within the church should know better and just are ignorant of the facts, no matter what you think about them. That puzzles me.” We had o…

Read More

Women’s Equality in the Church is No Longer Negotiable

…r what grounds them biologically. Being “created in the image of God” is a better bet. We are all learning together about this, some of us more willing to admit what we do not know than others. But we can certainly agree in the meantime that persons trump genitals, that competence and willingness to serve are far more relevant than gender identity when it comes to Christian life. This means ordination and decision making for women on a par with me…

Read More