Religion Dispatches
…. I also hear from friends that they’ve had better communications before departure; so the right company goes a long way for the ‘before’ part. I’ll ket you know about during and after. White I just folded all my clothes for the hajj. Most of them are new, a few gifts came of late, so I have pants and long tops, dresses, and scarves. I feel like I need one more scarf. Not for sheer number, but for style; there are so many styles, and one has to de…
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…ts opposition as beyond the pale, the embodiment of evil itself, unfit for participation in their vision of society, and thus worthy of elimination. It often further depicts its designated Enemy as vermin (especially rats and cockroaches) or diseases, and disease-like cancers on the body politic. A close corollary—but not as nakedly eliminationist—is the claim that opponents are traitors or criminals and that they pose a threat to our national sec…
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…” Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner point out the soft nature of Haredi sympathy for their ostensible partners. The article shows that while the Haredim enjoy the benefits of their lives in these settlements, by and large they have not become aligned, or even sympathetic, to Settler Zionism. Their position remains pragmatic; they do not see the state as a vehicle of redemption, and they have a nuanced sense of “security” that is not founded on the…
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…myriad dimensions of religious experience, and how body and soul are not separate. Even the film’s accompanying Web site made clear that he understood the ambiguous relations between religious ecstasy (i.e., Kabbalistic mythologies) and chemical imbalances in the mind (i.e., migraines). Aronofsky is too smart to deal in binaries, and so even back then he was already dissecting this material-spiritual difference with that of artificial intelligence…
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…cit reference to the Council made in the play, but it’s still clear: Doubt paints a picture, from the cheap seats of the Bronx, of the Church in mid-transformation. But things are even more complicated than that, as the story is also an elaborate critique of the way power is wielded in the Church—and the fact that Vatican II managed to change very little. Sister Aloysius is paralyzed by her position, unable to do anything about Father Flynn direct…
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…me people just want to know the names of all those they’re better than, to paraphrase a singer. And some of them, like the current occupant of the Oval Office, see the world as a profoundly zero-sum game: either you’re on top, or you’re a loser. There are no alternatives. This kind of domination play runs counter to the stated teachings of most of the religions Americans subscribe to, but let’s not kid ourselves. You can find elements of social an…
Read More…Mormons (who make up 7% of Nevada’s population) about comments by Angle’s pastor deriding the LDS Church as a “kooky” “cult.” More likely, it’s a move by Romney to appear relevant in the context of a Tea Party-infused, mortgage-meltdown-fueled voter backlash in Nevada. Nevada is about as volatile a place as you’ll find in the American West right now. It has the highest rate of mortgage foreclosures, mortgage fraud, unemployment, and bankruptcy in…
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…ced by the nominally socialist government (PASOK) of Prime Minister George Papandreou. At the very heart of the scandal lay this storied Byzantine monastery on Mount Athos. It is currently being sued for the return of government property, with damages. It has already been subject to one government investigation and is now being investigated again. Its story runs in surreal parallel to the story of the Greek nation I just rehearsed. Trading a Wor…
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…arratives to a few clear points, we all use evidence selectively, we all repackage our original sources, and we all attempt to craft engaging narratives. In sum, those of us sitting comfortably in our cheap desk chairs in our sterile offices in the nation’s colleges and universities have no higher ground to stand on. While we all labor to maintain an appropriate level of nuance, complexity, and context in our work, there is no doubt that we could…
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…nd their own members, they should be not a replacement but a supplement to participation in the wider community one hopes to reform. Point the way forward, not the way to the door. For those who want to make a difference in the Catholic Church, I have a simple piece of advice: don’t walk out—sit in. The tradition, fortunately, offers lots of things people can do that honor God even while raising a bit of Cain for man. Form organizations and networ…
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