Religion Dispatches
…ope know how to reach the kids. There’s the Italian DJ priest spinning the latest from Lady Gaga. Then there’s the skateboarding priest in Hungary. Awesome. Even more awesome: pilgrimages on a motorcycle. 10,000 motorcyclists took part in the festival of the Madonna of the Bikers in Porcaro, France. Christian Scientists want spiritual care covered in the federal health package. A new law in North Carolina requires schools and colleges to give stud…
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…avaria—a Southern, very Catholic and quite conservative state—are just the latest evidence of a global right-wing resurgence and should be recognized as yet another warning that a significant shift in German conservatism is underway. It’s also a sign that Germans—many of whom shake their heads incredulously at what they perceive to be the antics of the U.S. far-right—should finally start paying attention to what’s happening in their own country. “…
Read MoreOn the latest episode of my Bloggingheads show, I discuss this with Sarah Wildman: In the rest of the program, we discuss the neoconservative Emergency Committee for Israel ad aimed at demonizing (and defunding) the Center for American Progress and Media Matters for America; how issues relating to Israel-Palestine get discussed among American Jews; and Wildman’s excellent piece about the web magazine 972, published in the current issue of the Nat…
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…allenging the executive order, the Establishment argument advanced in this latest suit is both novel and essential. It puts under a microscope the faith-based animosity laid bare by the order, which specifically exempts refugees who are “religious minorities” in the seven Muslim-majority nations targeted by the ban (except for Syrian refugees, who are to be denied U.S. entry across the board, indefinitely). Like much of the language in the executi…
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…erceived insults against them and their Prophet? For starters, pick up the latest issues of Time and Newsweek, still the two leading weekly magazines, known to all Americans and read by many—especially in airports. On my flight to Istanbul, Time was available in the first airport lounge, Newsweek in the second. Against a backdrop of shouting mobs, smoke and fire, Time’s headline reads: THE AGENTS OF OUTRAGE An embassy attacked. Diplomats murdered….
Read More…en though Netanyahu opposes it — “pyromania.” This week, in discussing the latest escalations in violence and rising tensions in Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in particular, Seidemann told me that current situation in the “home town for people dealing with the apocalypse” “augurs for a non-routine violent event,” in part because “we have seen a serious destabilization at the Temple Mount.” Later that day, Glick was shot. If you want to understand…
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…tically rather than intuitively. David Bentley Hart would disagree. In his latest book, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, the Eastern Orthodox theologian argues, instead, that that “the absolutely convinced atheist” is not an uncompromising intellectual, but rather “someone who has failed to notice something very obvious.” And while Zuckerman’s study is rigorously researched, it actually demonstrates Hart’s point: the study gets…
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…ial dishes for offering to deities,” while modern varieties, the only kind promoted by the government, “are considered ‘impure’ for socio-cultural and religious ceremonies.” Faced with a soaring rate of Diabetes caused by the abandonment of traditional foods for “white” food products, the Tohono O’odham of the Sonora Desert have organized through communal institutions to support a return to their nearly extinct thousand-year-old former diet, write…
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…Americans identify (or don’t) with religion. It’s tempting to approach the latest report, and those to follow, with attention grabbing headlines that portray the complex statistics as a simplistic counting of which way the proverbial “fish” are swimming. To do so would be a grand mistake. While fluctuating statistics about how American adults affiliate religiously are important, the greatest insight the latest report provides is about the water in…
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…who has written about the civic engagement of African-American women in my latest book, Rev. Cook’s scattered resumé lacks the distinction of other notable black women historically involved in both religious affairs and international engagement, such as Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, civil rights leader, and founder of the National Council of Negro Women, or Sue Bailey Thurman, who was committed to inter-religious and interracial understanding (sh…
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