Religion Dispatches
…ose things. Thank you! I tried to be careful to not say that my way is the best way forward for anyone—atheist or not. Whenever someone decides they have discovered the best way and that other people should walk the same path, it’s a real turn-off. Atheist polemicists have done a lot to raise the visibility of atheists, but they haven’t made atheism all that attractive for many people and part of the reason why that is—fairly or unfairly—is that t…
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…use, last, not everything is under our control. Walter Brueggemann says it best: “In spite of our best planning, there is an inscrutable mystery about our experience which we cannot master or manipulate.” That includes the mystery of suffering, as Job discovered. Adherents of conspiracy theories and other kinds of foolishness often ascribe far too much power and control to the leading figures of their narratives. It’s a primitive way of thinking:…
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…time in our conversation, Chandler lowered his booming voice. The gays are best discussed in hushed tones. Like Chandler, Giglio said homosexuality was not a focus of his ministry. But notice what he didn’t say. He didn’t say that his views had evolved since the 1990s. He didn’t say that he no longer thought gays and lesbians were hell-bound. He didn’t say that the dreaded homosexual agenda had ceased to be a threat to these great United States. H…
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…ere is no middle ground.” Each year, one or two of her students challenge evolution in her class. She doesn’t engage with them. Instead, she suggests they meet after class for a cup of coffee, so they can discuss their religious beliefs. The best hope, she suggested, is for evangelicals who embrace science to live well and lead by setting the best example. “Hopefully we can let some of those people see, wow, that person really is a Christian,” Epp…
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…isms—they dumb us down, they elevate public humiliation—but what I’m really interested in is the way shows like Spike’s Joe Schmo Show or VH1’s I Love Money turn into morality plays about the value of friendship and loyalty. In the best reality shows, the initial rush of schadenfreude is gradually replaced with a genuine affection for the “good guys,” and righteous frustration at the machinations of the villains. I’m also fascinated by the villain…
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…incerity of purpose that cannot be ignored. I would argue that some of the best theology right now is being done by ethnomusicologists. Haynes’ feminist critique of Mars Hill is absolutely inspired and inspiring. Navigating the fine line reflects a certain theological or ethical stance as well. It’s an ambiguous set of practices. One does not simply borrow. One reflects one’s theological or ethical convictions in the process. In Secular Music and…
Read More…truce, let alone a real peace,” he writes, but his evidence is flimsy, at best. After acknowledging the mounting evidence that the religious right is losing its monolithic hard-line political stance on a host of issues, Steinfels rightly recalls that what was called the “culture wars,” beginning in the late 1960s, at first did not center on issues of religion. He notes that the issues currently dominating US political debate have little or nothin…
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…ublic forgets quickly, which means that there’s little incentive to create best practice plans and mechanisms for reducing the scale of disasters, since by election time no one is likely to remember. “Voters reward the delivery of disaster relief, but not investments in disaster preparedness,” the authors bleakly conclude. The problem is that most of us see disaster, and disaster response, through a narrative of melodrama. Melodrama is known for e…
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…now is this: how can we wage this battle even more effectively? How can we best shield ourselves from the inevitable onslaughts of predatory journalists, readers, and politicians who prefer “fake news” over evidence-based, critical discussions on religion and society? How can we more fully reap the rewards of living dangerously? It is not about policing our tone or maintaining respectability. On the contrary, I beg public intellectuals: do not san…
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…join in reflection and worship as well as meet, coordinate and plan how we best share our testimonies with other people of faith around the nation.” Strider even insisted that the Democrats, unlike You Know Who, grasp that faith without works is dead; he writes that the real story of Charlotte is of a “party that lives what it preaches.” Well, yes and no. It’s a party that gives Elizabeth Warren a microphone even as it dispatches Rahm Emanuel to…
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