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

By Matt Hamilton

…way,” I’d remind myself as I sat in morning meditation, relishing the slow pace, the lack of phone, and the birds, chirping in the canyon surrounding the ashram. After about an hour of silence, the spiritual director Surrendra read a passage aloud from the legendary 20th century yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda. “Yours is a glorious destiny. You are a child of the Infinite!” Surrendra said. “Why delay? Why waste time on countless detours? Go straight t…

Pop-Culture Angels Are More Than Just Embarrassing Kitsch

By Ed Simon

…y from Victorian sentimentalism. Such angels are on sale at reduced price; cheap wares for cheap faith. It would be an error, however, to fully dismiss pop culture angels. Despite the fact that representations of angels in film and television, comics and music, paperback novels and posters, are filtered through market concerns, such pop culture can still speak to human meaning—and because of that they merit our attention. Besides, the bulk of art…

Racism and Anti-Semitism Are Not Intrusions of a Dark Past Into Our Present

By Joyce Dalsheim and Gregory Starrett

…the present—we ignore the possibility of its reappearance. In other words, parts of the past that seem to intrude into the present are indications that there can be no permanent consignment of our previous collective selves to the grave. The past lingers with us in the now as an inheritance that’s central to our present selves, and therefore represents a capacity for return. Eric K. Ward writing for Political Research Associates reminds us of one…

How Much Did Jesus Care About Sex?

By Peter Laarman

…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. What progressive Christians won’t do, however, is renounce all sexuality or follow people…

Beyond Alarmism and Denial in the Dominionism Debate

By Anthea Butler

…it. Not everyone there, as you say Sarah, was a dominionist. Everyone who participated in the fasting and prayer, however, did think it was important to pray for America and the particular moral issues they felt were relevant to their beliefs. The big story is that the religious right isn’t dead. Its alive and kicking. Ralph Reed got that right in his article: The media, which has been publishing the obituary of religious conservatives prematurel…

Episcopal Church Assault Data Reveals the Dark Side of Inclusive Christianity

By Charlotte Dalwood

…anned truth-and-reconciliation process on gender and sexual abuse in Episcopal spaces. And the truth is horrifying. Of the more than 2400 responses collected, 475 (20%) are from cisgender LGB Episcopalians. Nearly 40% of these—189 individuals—reported being the targets of inappropriate jokes and comments; 29.9%—82 individuals—of inappropriate touching; and a further 14.9%—71 individuals—of attempted fondling or kissing. The survey also uncovered a…

Power Up: Turn Off the Cell Phone

By Daniel Schultz

…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…

Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired

By Rachel Wagner

…MS (short message service, i.e. “texting”) technology to send out a “daily papal message” to believers. Pope John Paul also oversaw the creation in 1995 of the Vatican’s Web site, complete with searchable encyclicals proposing, in 1999, that the sixth-century scholar St. Isidore be the patron saint of computers and the internet. After succeeding John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI arranged for SMS messages to be sent to the cell phones of youth attend…

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

By Elizabeth Colmant Estes

…get where he is coming from. But to me, the most important thing about the papal visit was not the agenda he upheld, but the stance he held up. At the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on September 23, those of us in attendance were reminded, via loudspeaker, that the Roman Catholic Church has made and continues to make mistakes. “Saints are only human,” a voice proclaimed during a pre-Mass program that acknowledged the objections of Na…

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

By Anthony Adams

…nnot bring himself to practice what he preaches. By not extending the sacrament of matrimony to all Catholics, he denies us the very compassion he extols so highly. For a man whose papacy has focused on the value of mercy, he seems content to rest on his laurels in Amoris Laetitia, saying much but changing nothing….