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

By Matt Hamilton

…ulsion to connect. But this ashram sold wifi. Monks rested their keys and cellphones on the table during meals. And during yoga on the first night, our yogi took pictures with her phone as we attempted the warrior pose. Was I back in Los Angeles? Why wasn’t this different? The staff—all devotees of the Ananda movement, a Hindu spiritual fellowship founded in northern California during the late 60s—only reinforced feelings of familiarity. There was…

Pop-Culture Angels Are More Than Just Embarrassing Kitsch

By Ed Simon

…wrence’s 2005 Constantine, a film adaptation of Alan Moore’s DC graphic novel Hellblazer, details the work of its titular character, a metaphysical noir detective who lives in a Los Angeles that exists in a space equally with the dimensions of Heaven and Hell. As with Dogma and Good Omens, Constantine engages a certain “bureaucratizing of the sacred,” an understanding of the transcendent realm as reminiscent of the political, social, legal, and ec…

How Much Did Jesus Care About Sex?

By Peter Laarman

…gious progressives have done a lot of serious work on the importance of fidelity in all relationships and the difference between fully-realized relationships that participate in the sacred vs. liaisons that fall short of that mark. Religious progressives, after all, are the ones who have tried to enrich, not degrade, the marriage sacrament by arguing that God blesses all deeply committed marriage bonds, not just marriages made by heterosexuals. Wh…

Beyond Alarmism and Denial in the Dominionism Debate

By Anthea Butler

…d from not only friendships, but the lucrative ministries that Pearson himself helped to create. All that said, there are different ways that people experience this, or faith healings, or other performances you find in these environments. Not everyone is in lockstep, when you sit down and talk with them. I remember vividly the 2007 event at Gimenez’s church in Virginia Beach—this was before John Gimenez passed away—and there was quite a lineup of…

Episcopal Church Assault Data Reveals the Dark Side of Inclusive Christianity

By Charlotte Dalwood

…of sexual abuse to denominational authorities. Those fears are, unfortunately, well-founded. Of those victims who did report their victimization to Episcopal leaders, the number one assessment from both trans/non-binary and cisgender respondents was that “little or no change” came about as a result. 20.6% of transgender and non-binary survivors reported that they simply left the church altogether. By comparison, “only” 10.7% of cisgender women fe…

Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired

By Rachel Wagner

…hn Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI arranged for SMS messages to be sent to the cell phones of youth attending World Youth Day, a practice that has since become standard. This year Pope Benedict text-messaged a reminder about evangelism to all subscribers to the SMS service: “The Holy Spirit gave the Apostles and gives u the power boldly 2 proclaim that Christ is risen!—BXVI.” Recently Bishop Anthony Fisher announced the development of an associated onl…

Power Up: Turn Off the Cell Phone

By Daniel Schultz

…asier and just put [a phone] in the house? “What would that lead to?” another Amish man asked me. “We don’t want to be the kind of people who will interrupt a conversation at home to answer a telephone. It’s not just how you use the technology that concerns us. We’re also concerned about what kind of person you become when you use it.” Just so. Sigh….

Bishop Minerva Carcaño Has a Nearly Impossible Job

By Mary E. Hunt

…d rights of people on the border and in the fields. My colleagues in the field of church-related social justice call her a rock star, an ally who brings the weight of her office to their lobbying efforts against some of the most conservative public officials. Minerva’s episcopal position lends credibility to her progressive insistence that each child be cared for regardless of legal status. Whether preaching in one of her churches or discussing sp…

“Saints Are Only Human”: Leaving the Church, But Heeding this Pope’s Lessons

By Elizabeth Colmant Estes

…could be the only Protestant here.” I left the church decades ago when I felt unwelcome as an unmarried single mother. Catholic University had offered little support. Now a seminarian seeking ordination as a Reformed Christian minister, this was the first time I had returned in more than 30 years. Speaking only in Spanish, the pope’s homily touched upon the damage native people suffered through the system of missions that Junipero Serra help foun…

We Went Through Amoris Laetitia Section by Section So You Wouldn’t Have To

By Anthony Adams

…open to the “meaning” of procreation. This is the kind of bad poetry that elderly celibates often produce. Skip this part or risk becoming infuriated by it. In the sections that follow, he continues to wax on about what defines a good (and evidently hetero) marriage: In Section 125, Francis says that marriage is a “friendship marked by passion,” but he again refuses to look at how this very good definition might be applied to same-sex unions. Sec…