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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…

Saving Teens from Obama: When Bible Study Goes Wrong

By Vyckie Garrison

…waste American money to buy their expensive oil when we could have our own cheap oil?” “Why is he trying to make rich people poor?” “How is it right to punish rich people for working hard and realizing the American Dream?” It was late on a Friday night and I was tired, so I half-heartedly responded by explaining that there are other factors to consider in every charged question she’d been armed with. But I wondered, “Why the hell was the Salvation…

A Good and/or Bad Friday

By Mary Valle

…ld feet of Jesus.” Yes, I think in poetry. I remembered many chilly-bright Fridays spent in a sepulcher-cold church engaging in bizarre rites involving incense, men and boys in robes and the solemn recanting of a man/god hybrid’s lengthy torture and death. Good Friday was spooky for sure. There was no host in the tabernacle that day. Instead of communion, the climax of the “festivities” was everyone lining up and, in turn, solemnly kissing the col…

Crucifying the Prairie: An Eco-Theology of Resistance for Good Friday

By Jacob J. Erickson

…crucified people. Like Solberg, Cone reminds us that the cross, that Good Friday, can call out Christians to speak against their participation in systems of violence. Solberg’s theology and Cone’s juxtaposition of the lynching tree and the cross compels me to ask if Christians might expand our symbols of crucifixion in an age of radical ecological injustice. We need new imaginations and stories to help us navigate this planet. These cruciform ima…

Invited by Allah

By Amina Wadud

…e said more, something about the package. But I just wanted to get off the phone, so I could say out loud a soft, “yes!”, make a silent prayer of gratitude, and then just cry a little. I dressed in white to attend Friday prayer (not as the imam, mind you). Then later in the day, the mailman delivered my unscented cosmetics, from the Labayk Company; and my shoes came by parcel post, from Zappos. I put them on and started walking with them. Altogeth…

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

…church, they’re marinating, so to speak, in the the various teachings of a number of people. I’ve covered many an event where I’ve been waiting in line to get in, and the inevitable conversation with the people around you goes something like this: they ask first where you go to church, and second which teachers you admire, and then you get into a long conversation about the relative virtues of all of them. A really good example of how all these te…

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+…

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

…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…