Religion Dispatches
…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…ocrinologists be brought up on charges if they freeze embryos and some are destroyed, as routinely happens? And miscarriages: will they be investigated? Will they require coroner’s reports and death certificates? It’s entirely possible to think abortion is wrong, while still being bothered by the potential consequences of turning blastocyst-Americans into legal rights-bearing persons. But meanwhile, those who are most invested in getting a personh…
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…her “everybody’s gal.” In wartimes she’s carried a sword, placed an urgent phone call for financial help, and even scolded her citizenry. As a mascot for our country, she’s been given the face of a skull on the streets of Tehran and been beheaded by Trump in a famous Der Spiegel cover from earlier this year. In the religious and cultural imagination of America, she’s been denounced as a demonic idol, revered as a Wiccan goddess, reimagined as a Ch…
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…eachhead of intolerance to spread in our nation,” and even managed to associate the name of Thomas Jefferson with his pledge to “totally destroy” the so-called Johnson Amendment that currently bars tax-favored congregations (and other non-for-profit 501c3 organizations) from engaging in overt political activity. Trump appeared to be unaware of Mr. Jefferson’s insistence on a “wall of separation” between church and state. One imagines that Presiden…
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…d is, often, mostly talking about Christian views. In doing so, it’s essentially conflating “Christian” with “American,” a strategy typically associated more with Ben Carson than with Gallup. More generally, polls obscure a certain messiness in the American polity. Syncretism, idiosyncrasy, and inconsistency are regular features of individuals’ spiritual lives. Little of that gets captured when you scale people up into categories. The complexities…
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…OK,” But… One part of the Pew study asked respondents to gauge the appropriateness of using cellphones in various places, including whether it is “generally okay or not okay for people to use their cellphones…at church or [a] worship service.” A full 96% of those surveyed chose “generally not okay,” which was slightly higher than those who condemn mobile use in movie theaters. This finding indicates not only that the secular chambers of the cinem…
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…eorgia is prepared, as a nation, for real social change. Ana described Patriarch Ilia II as one of the most outspoken opponents of LGBT rights in the country, even though he has generally been a supporter of western ties and integration with Europe. Before the 2013 attacks, Ana writes, there seemed to be “a slow but steady national shift in favor of progressive values” and greater tolerance toward the LGBT community. But just beneath the surface,…
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…cause the student had not returned to Russia when he was scheduled to. Russian officials told state-run media that the child had been “seduced” by a “pair of old homosexuals” while in the U.S., and had sought asylum because of his “non-traditional sexual orientation.” On Saturday, the New York Times reported that the fact that the boy “chose not to return home and sought asylum on the basis of his sexual orientation” had been confirmed by an “Amer…
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…ners use cultural trends to breathe new life back into their traditions.” Via phone, Norris explained that one of the ways play revives religion is through humor, an omnipresent way of dealing with the contradictions inherent in any institution. “When you bring two things together and you don’t know exactly how to reconcile them, that’s when you laugh,” said Norris. “Laughter” doesn’t always mean “mockery,” she continued. More often, laughter is a…
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…of color) who totally got me. But the overwhelming culture resisted my initiatives on racial justice and gender equality, equated voting Republican with authentic Christianity, called homosexuality a disease, celebrated female submission to male leadership and called conversations about social justice distractions from the “core gospel message” of converting others. As a liberal, queer-affirming woman of color I was living in the crosshairs of the…
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