Religion Dispatches
…ds and advertisements that tell us our life is not enough without that new phone, that new gadget, that new dress. And yet the minute you purchase your phone or laptop, it is obsolete. Every six months, fashion editors tell us our entire closet is out—our clothing is disposable. Shopping is not only a lifestyle, it is a form of entertainment. Whether it is infomercials and shopping networks or makeover shows, we not only shop, we watch people shop…
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…ider audience, selling millions of copies and reaching the top slot of the New York Times bestseller list. The films should be able to appeal to anyone who liked a good thriller, which would require higher production values, actors known more for their acting than their religious commitments, and a real understanding of the business of movies. The lawsuit was eventually settled out of court. Paul Lalonde got the rights to make the movie again and…
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…tic types, he could have only carried so many bullets with him. Americans knew how to watch the number of reported casualties go up, but we lost our collective minds when we watched the number of confirmed active shooters in Paris go up. The images coming out of Paris in the immediate term were of a city devoured by chaos and fear rather than the stillness of carnage, more terrifying for their uncertainty. There was a brief lull in the digital noi…
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…ou’ll read an excerpt below—has surprised me, too. I wish I could find my airline companion and give him this book, to surprise him, too—in a good way. (I would accept Lakers tickets in lieu of apologies, but I think that particular era is done.) This whole book is a result of a profound evolution, and needs to be seen as such. American Muslims have gone through a lot over the last few decades. We were never the caricature Islamophobes made us ou…
Read MoreAt oral argument in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties, Inc. v. Sebelius this morning, the Supreme Court justices spent a great deal of time questioning the lawyers in the case about whether corporations have a religious conscience, and whether Congress intended to protect it when enacting the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). What was most striking, though, was how all three female justices, Sonia So…
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…nline, call imams live on television shows, and even access imams via cell phones to receive new fatwas (religious rulings) for questions they may have. The recent proliferation of people claiming to have credentials to issue fatwas has created confusion and frustration among some Muslims (IOL Technology). Who should decide, if anyone, what authoritative texts should be accessible, and to whom—when anyone with an internet hookup and a laptop can f…
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…n teach us about Ferguson Watch filmmaker Dean Peterson’s short video of a New York City subway stairwell: When the video was posted three years ago, it prompted this jewel of an observation by Metafilter user James Bording: “On its own, when you see one person slip, you automatically assume that person slipped, was clumsy or not playing attention. But when you look at the aggregate, you realize that the failure isn’t on the individual at all, rat…
Read More…umanist got so much religion. Her fundamental contention is that we need a new meta-narrative, one with the power that the right has in its passionate and well-funded defense of individualism. What, she asks, if there was an alternative narrative of communal reciprocity or participation or linkages? What if our relationships mattered? This feminist alternative to the story that is killing us is fundamentally a religious problem. Where did religion…
Read More…orcupines, the orchids and the grasses, the unborn children and the forest. They can’t speak for themselves. And the President is their enemy, if he truly annuls Paris’ great hopes for nature. Out of love, we must make new alliances, we must cross the divide….
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…center driven by real estate, banking, and the stock market. Yes of course New York is the American center of theater, fine art and publishing; but even with these folks the talk is of money, financing, advances, sales figures. The pandemic will change a lot of things about New York City, but not its obsession with money. Of course, I can think of a few complicating factors. The outgoing president is the Emperor of BS, and he is, or was, a New Yor…
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