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Race, Reparations and the Search for Our Molecular Soul

By Michael Schulson

…se, they quantify heritage. In many ways, DNA is a perfect addition to the search for an authentic, unique identity—a search that is both a mode of consumption and of spiritual exploration for many Americans. Unless you have an identical twin, your DNA is one-of-a-kind. It permeates your physical self. It seems to dictate your life in potent ways. It cannot be forged. And it situates you in the past. The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and…

Spiritual Unplugging, Or What to Do When There is Wifi at the Ashram

By Matt Hamilton

…self-interrogation boiled, my hand extended to the right. I reached for my phone, but I found nothing. At first I laughed at my instinct, my muscle memory. The phone, with its glowing screen, gave me solace and control. But I was tied to my cushion for another hour, and in this ashram for another day, so email would have to wait. I panicked. My heart raced. Would my editor be asking for me? Would a reply from that politician’s secretary sit unansw…

Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired

By Rachel Wagner

…ability of cell phones to be used for impure activities, some Jewish cell-phone users have requested so-called “kosher” phones. The idea is to offer conservative Jews a phone that is free of “corrupting influences” of the sort that are already avoided by ultra-orthodox Jews through a ban on television and some radio. Reuters reported in February 2008 that Bezeq Israel Telecom launched a new “kosher” landline phone service, which will block calls…

How Much Did Jesus Care About Sex?

By Peter Laarman

…cost of true discipleship. The price it was called upon to pay was all too cheap…We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale; we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition…Was there ever a more terrible and disastrous instance of Christianizing the world than this? It’s regrettable, I think, that “cheap grace” has turned into a kind of meme that Rod Dreher can toss into his debate with Andrew Sullivan without…

Beyond Alarmism and Denial in the Dominionism Debate

By Anthea Butler

…as a Master’s student at Fuller working the switchboard part-time, and the number one phone call that came through went something like this: “Can you connect me to C. Peter Wagner’s Church Growth Institute? I’d like to buy some materials.” No one was happier than I was when he retired from Fuller and moved to Colorado Springs! I felt like I worked at a catalog call-in center. Seriously. I would never have expected to be talking about Wagner in con…

When ‘Church Business’ Yields a Real Page Turner

By Peter Laarman

…uneven spikes up foodie fun by ending the novel with 30 pages of selected “search recipes,” including some real-life stunners. So here we have a wise and witty narrator at the center of the action, joined in the search “process” (the word itself is suspect) by a cast of vivid secondary characters: Charlotte, the committee’s chair, a former congregation president and ultra-competent lawyer in her 60s; Belinda, a much-loved 83-year-old “pillar” of t…

American Buddhism: Beyond the Search for Inner Peace

By Joshua Eaton

…h worldly matters” but on a deep compassion for humanity. He subscribed to Time magazine, and each week we would discuss the important news articles we had read (during his last four years he was almost blind, so I had to read out loud to him). Through Ven. Nyanaponika I came to see that the imperative of compassion requires that we turn around to face the world again and use the light of the Dharma [Sanskrit shorthand for “teachings of the Buddha…

White Rockers in Search of Soul Salvation

By Paul Harvey

…too: I know Jesus, and I know the devil, They’re both inside of me all the time This ain’t no picnic that I’m living Just a resting place before it’s time to go Only one tune on the record—the worst one, lyrically—offers optimism and hope, but does so with clichés. (“Try to keep your mind open and accept your mistakes”—okay, I’ll work on that, John.) The other most positive lyric comes when a man and his son beat the crap out of some dude at a din…

Episcopal Church Assault Data Reveals the Dark Side of Inclusive Christianity

By Charlotte Dalwood

…a random sample size and therefore isn’t statistically representative. The number of individuals reporting victimization in Episcopal spaces is alarming nonetheless. However, I would argue the data is more likely to under- than to overestimate the scope of the abuse that occurs. To see why, the survey results must be interpreted in light of the Episcopal Church’s larger culture of inaction around sexual violence. See no evil, hear no evil… LGBTQ+…

On Pi Day, Puzzling Over the Most Famous Transcendental Number

By Ilana E. Strauss

…d our understanding of pi. But even then, the task is endless. When people search for pi, they search for the infinite. They’ll never reach it, as long as they’re finite beings with finite imaginations. But there’s some wonder that comes with trying. Some satisfaction that comes with meditating on pi, reciting its digits like a mantra. Cliff Pickover, a math and science author and the editor-in-chief of the IBM Journal of Research and Development,…