Religion Dispatches
CNN’s Belief Blog has a great rundown of the lavish homes of American archbishops who haven’t gotten the memo from Pope Francis about a “church which is poor and for the poor.” CNN reports that “10 of the 34 active archbishops in the United States live in buildings worth more than $1 million.” The median home value in the U.S. is $174,200. Not surprisingly, that list includes some of the nation’s most outspoken conservative bishops—and allies of…
Read More
…cal for confronting Christian nationalism. According to Tyler, “we do a disservice if we focus only on the most violent and extreme forms of Christian nationalism.” She considers “the more mundane, everyday examples” to be “just as insidious and harmful.” Asked for an example, Tyler points to state legislative efforts to require the posting of “In God We Trust” in public school classrooms. “We think you make a difference in Christian nationalism c…
Read More
Last week a six-week-old baby died in Suceava, Romania during his baptism into the Romanian Orthodox Church. The priest is being held on manslaughter charges and a firestorm of anger has begun to be directed at the Orthodox Church’s practice of full-immersion infant baptism, including a petition urging the Romanian church to change its practice. The Romanian Patriarch has said no such changes will occur. But neither the incident (no matter how tr…
Read More…of the UK and France) as we only have 1 million in Western Europe, whereas 800,000 out of these 1 million live in France and the UK. The US on the other hand, with more than 6 million Jews (600% more than Europe) actually has a considerable Jewish problem. But please learn the difference between a nation-wrecking multiculturalist Jew and a conservative Jew. He then offers clues as to why he targeted fellow Norwegians, even though he claims to lov…
Read More
…rwise, more little snakes will be raised.” This week Israel’s most popular online news source, Ynetnews, published an op-ed by a rabbi citing Biblical passages as a rationale for extending the bloodshed in Gaza. The statements of Ovadia Yosef, whose recent passing was met with flattering memorials both in Israel and the US, are legendary. The former Chief Rabbi of Israel and spiritual leader of many Middle Eastern Jews, said, among other things, t…
Read More
…embly, the sisters officially called for gun control legislation and signed 800 postcards demanding Congress members to pass immigration reform. As LCWR past-president, Sr. Pat Farrell said to the Assembly, “Expressing what we really think and feel, with transparency and vulnerability, is for the brave of heart. It is, however, what we are being asked to do in our current conflict. All of a sudden the world is looking to us.” Like this story? You…
Read More
…n turn toward peace, stumble a bit at that second step. They do us a great service when they focus on the crucial role of the Jewish narrative of victimization, which so many American writers tend to overlook (while Israelis as well as Palestinians routinely see it as the crux of the problem). But in subtle ways both of these authors show themselves not quite able to escape completely from it. Neither Victims Nor Victimized Beinart’s most controve…
Read More
…are of Mingora town. Journalist Shaheen Buneri has estimated that more than 800 music shops have been bombed or attacked in the Northwest since 2006. I spoke with a man who had personally witnessed Islamist thugs destroying traditional instruments in front of the players whose lives depended on them. It was against this backdrop that I put some questions to the man at the harmonium. Because of continuing danger at home, he wished to remain anonymo…
Read More
…s generation was Mother Teresa. Like her, he lived out his Christianity in service to others. In 2005, I moved from a secular religious studies department at Cal State Northridge to a department of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University. One of the first theological pieces I wrote, on “Theology and the Intellectual Life,” I dedicated to Coach Wooden, who I thought was underappreciated for the theological reflection that was his life. F…
Read More
…fore she moved to Seattle, where she now works for an agency that provides services to homeless youth. “Simply hiding out in the safety and comfort of a place like Seattle is not Christian,” she says in reply to a question about why she would leave a gay-friendly city to spend two months visiting places that actively discriminate against queer folks. “Statistically,” she continues, “a third of homeless young people identify as gay, bisexual, or tr…
Read More