Religion Dispatches
…he Overlook Press, 2008. Kernberg, O F. “A Psychoanalytic Classification of Character Pathology.” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 18, no. 4 (October 1970): 800-22. Moreno, J. L. The Essential Moreno: Writings on Psychodrama, Group Method and Spontaneity. Springer Pub Co, 1987….
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…fied as AIDS, did not receive ongoing or thorough coverage. By 1982, nearly 800 AIDS cases had been diagnosed. According to one study, infants and children were increasingly infected. Although a threat to the general population was quickly dismissed, the implication was clear: anyone could be infected. The epidemic had exposed social and cultural fault lines that made coverage more than just a medical story. Its initial outbreak in the homosexual…
Read More…rty” leaders, Glenn Beck is one of the most vitriolic, and – with more than 800 hours of on-air time a year – the most visible. His portrayal of Soros today as the “Puppet Master,” as the special was called, evokes anti-Semitic stereotypes from the “devaluer of many currencies” to “advocate for one world government” from “anti-American” to “thinks he’s smarter than the rest of us.” Beck’s words have consequences. They advance a world view that ult…
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…reedom Seder in the basement of a Black church in Washington DC, with about 800 people, Jews and Christians, Black and white. It was not only my engagement with the Jewish text, with all the Jewish texts, that “rewrote” me. It was also my engagement with other Jews who were rewriting themselves, my engagement with communities that came together in the very process of wrestling with these texts. For indeed, it turned out that others were entering t…
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I have had the honor of working extensively with the Rev. Dr. William Barber II, beginning when he keynoted the launch of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice in November 2013. It has been a fruitful partnership in all respects. In his new book, Rev. Barber reminds us of the importance of education and history in the long struggle for justice and righteousness. Referring to how those in power kept the poor divided in histor…
Read More…rtisan politics. The devotional speaker who had been invited to address the 800-plus crowd that evening spoke mainly about the need for Christians to think and act “eschatologically,” orienting their practices always to their vision of ultimate reconciliation which is portrayed as the eschatological banquet of God. Then she used an example to drive the radical nature of Christian reconciliation home to her audience. She was born and raised a Democ…
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…ategy memo she’s painted as: a middle-aged hag who lives in a cave with her 800 cats; unqualified to lead because her womb’s as empty as Jesus’ tomb; and hatching a master plan to suppress the aromatic scent of electricity. If I weren’t merely an outside agitator, I’d be sure to only cast my ballot for someone who’s birthed their own children, just like all the previous presid— wait, what? Anyway, Kamala cackles like Satan or something. You see, i…
Read More…g District of Western China, where officials have reportedly bulldozed over 800 mosques. Authorities have also detained hundreds of thousands of Uighurs in re-education camps. The scale of the suffering is difficult to imagine. In fairness, there’s been a lot of good reporting about the plight of the Uighurs. And yet I believe the outpouring of emotion for more recognizable places—especially Notre Dame—is instructive. Samuel Johnson defined sympat…
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Amen and awoman. Exclusion and inclusion. Division and diversity. Religion and nonreligion. Rep. Cleaver (D-MO) ignited these flammable dichotomies delivering the House’s opening prayer for this session and ending it: “We ask it in the name of the monotheistic God, Brahma, and God known by many names and by many different faiths. Amen, and awoman.” The prayer might have been written by Saul Bellow’s Good Intentions Paving Company. But good intent…
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…ortions say it is in part because they cannot afford a child. That is about 800,000 women and girls each year. The only bill they support, The Reducing the Need for Abortions and Supporting Parents Act, includes only a fraction of what would be needed for women to be able to provide for children. The bill was first introduced in 2006 and has never even made it to full committee consideration. None of the groups or individuals active in the common…
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