Religion Dispatches
…plugged-in lifestyle doesn’t really get at the heart of the issue. I think the Amish, of all people, have it right. It’s not so much about what you as an individual are doing or not doing, as the effect technology has on the community: Why not make life easier 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 tel…
Read More
…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…
Read More…slogans about immigration reform. On line I heard that parishes with large numbers of undocumented immigrants had received many tickets. No outside food or water, statues, gifts or selfie sticks were permitted. Despite 10,000 folding chairs, most of us would have no choice but to stand. Once in my appointed place behind the last row of seats, I found myself in a community of fellow pilgrims, lottery winners from local parishes, nearby colleges, an…
Read More
…ualism is bad. Also, he notes but offers no explanation for the decreasing number of marriages in many countries. I am glad to see that in Section 34 he understands this basic fact of contemporary western culture: The ideal of marriage, marked by a commitment to exclusivity and stability, is swept aside whenever it proves inconvenient or tiresome. The fear of loneliness and the desire for stability and fidelity exist side by side with a growing fe…
Read More
…age. His 2012 book, The Buddha Walks into a Bar, has sold widely. Over the phone, I asked Rinzler why he and Burrows had chosen to establish the studio as a for-profit company. “We really wanted to make sure we had all the resources we need for supporting people who are trying meditation for the first time,” Rinzler explained. Because they’re a business, there’s more professionalism. The teachers they’ve hired show up on time, and, as Rinzler put…
Read More
…seats, taking control of the five-member board in rural Elbert County. In Aspen School District 1, only one candidate that scored 100% on the Coalition scorecard was elected. But in Brighton School District 27J, a Coalition candidate flipped one Democratic seat. Only one of a Coalition-backed slate of candidates won a seat on the Durango School District 9-R. A Coalition candidate won a seat on the Bayfield 10 School District JT-R and another won…
Read More…inent. Meanwhile, James Kassaga Arinaitwe, a 2014 New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute, published in late July an opinion piece for Al Jazeera on the ways US evangelical groups are “increasingly shaping Uganda’s development policies to suit their religious agenda.” His piece touches on the impact of the “prosperity gospel,” claims that HIV/AIDS can be cured through prayer, and the power that comes with the financial resources flowing into evan…
Read More…gender identity in Africa at Berlin’s Freie Universtat and a fellow at the Aspen Institute, published a commentary in the Daily Beast in which he raised questions about the move, including concerns that it may feed into the anti-colonial rhetoric used by homophobic leaders in Africa: The fact is that Berry is a white man—as will be his U.K. equivalent, if opposition leader Ed Miliband wins the May 7 election and appoints Lord Michael Cashman as hi…
Read More
…ans would be attracted to, appreciate and consider careers in science (the number is decreasing annually). I bet we’d have more productive conversation among students and leaders of science and religion around the many profound issues in our nation that engage both: abortion, medical care, stem cells, homosexuality, and genomic research. The battle rhetoric would fade and, more than likely, movies like Expelled wouldn’t be made in the first place….
Read More…es ECI’s leadership – knows this to be the case. Which makes ECI’s video a cheap lie — yet another in a long litany of desperate efforts by the far right to convert the largely liberal American Jewish community to neo-conservatism, hawkish policies on Israel, and the belief that “Barack Hussein Obama” is a Muslim. That said, there actually are two interesting forms of antisemitism going on here. First is the antisemitism of ECI itself. To tug at…
Read More