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
…e that I saw that it was true. You refer to the idea of the human being as microcosm, or miniature universe, and how self-knowledge can open onto a more universal understanding. But how about the social? What happens when human beings come together? The best and the worst of humanity comes in groups. Think of the difference between a mob and a community. A mob is low level—with no insult intended to animals—but it’s a bestial mass, a herd obeying…
Read More
…ublished a commentary this week arguing that anti-gay discrimination “undermines economic growth and is un-African.” She applauded South Africa’s support for the Resolution on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity that, as we reported last week, was adopted by the UN’s Human Rights Council, while noting there is much more work to be done to safeguard LGBTI people in South Africa and the rest of the continent. …South Africa must be a…
Read More…oe v. Wade being overturned. So conservative legislators are caught in the middle, and the voters themselves are… well… making phone calls and holding marches, because what else is there to do? (When I called the office of one member of the Public Health Committee to register my opposition to SB-1433, the staffer on the phone said, “Goodness, it seems like everyone in Oklahoma is calling.” I wearily replied that most of the calls must be in suppor…
Read More
…ment. They have their belief system and I have mine and I’m living true to mine.” Dominican Republic: Catholic Cardinal disses openly gay U.S. Ambassador Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez of the Archdiocese of Santo Domingo called the openly gay US Ambassador James “Wally” Brewster “a man’s wife” and suggested he should “stick to housework.” Netherlands: Gays from Middle East face threats from fellow refugees Five gay men — three from Syri…
Read More
…ouse. She reported that, whenever she tried to speak to this friend on the phone in the house about the haunting, the phone connection would be interrupted. As a busy woman with two kids, Maria doesn’t always have a lot of time to devote to spirituality, but when she does, she often relies on intuition. In the case of the haunting, she reports that her intuition pointed her toward the conclusion that it’s the land on which the house was built that…
Read More…ty [women’s auxiliary] meeting was a Proposition 8 organizing meeting—with phone trees and the bishop coming in and saying you’ve got to do this. We just left shaking, and she hasn’t gone back. She never set foot in that building again. Through my kids’ eyes, I see things in a fresh way. So I was thinking about the Utah Pride Parade, which is now almost bigger than the Days of ’47 [Pioneer Day parade commemorating Mormon pioneers]. This is a para…
Read More
…Reactions across the globe—and across the political spectrum—took note of Miller’s misstep, either explicitly evoking the language of religion (“Is Nothing Sacred?” asked the headline in the Guardian, which began with the ominous line: “The surest mark of regime change is when they start attacking the statues.”) or implicitly reiterating the civil faith Acosta bore witness to by running poignant pictures of Lady Liberty as a manifestation of shar…
Read More
…ful. So, God, I’ve got this breakfast thing tomorrow, which is really more Mike Pence’s crowd than mine. They’ve been so good to me. But boy, they love Mike, this crowd. I looked at the speech Steve gave me. I’m definitely gonna use this line: “I have met amazing people whose words of worship and encouragement have been a constant source of strength.” That’s a good one. So smart. They do worship me. You saw those crowds at the inauguration? What a…
Read More
…theology is a kind of pluralistic discussion that welcomes all kinds of premises and belief commitments as it tackles shared questions. It’s not just haggling over dogma, or defining the nature of God. I asked Sheehan why, if NASA wanted to address certain big questions about astrobiology and society, they should turn to theologians, instead of asking philosophers or sociologists or religious studies scholars to come up with some answers. Sheehan…
Read More