Religion Dispatches
…n the reality of a depreciating house, evaporating 401K, and dwindling American job market. Unfortunately, regardless of the characters and costumes that the McCain/Palin ticket parade this week, these are the real stories of our lives that we must eventually confront. Trick or Treat!!…
Read More…on Sunday mornings. She wasn’t driving a bus, but a dispute over a traffic ticket involving a veiled woman in France has intensified controversy over French anti-veil legislation. Regardless of whether or not you get the religion of soccer, seminarians in Rome are quite happy to put on a pair of cleats. Forget the U.S. tie with England, I’m more interested in the Redemptoris Mater win over the North American Martyrs. Back in Los Angeles, Cardinal…
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…per tickets. Up to the manuscript room, where I handed the ID card and one ticket to the clerk. She gave me a key to a locker, where I had to leave all my belongings except one pencil (not a pen, with which I could deface a manuscript) and a notebook. Reentering the reading room, I had to display my pencil and notebook to the clerk to get back my ID card and the ultimate prize: a plastic block with a number on it. I was then permitted to sit in a…
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…tched around several city blocks, districts that were used to double-digit numbers were overwhelmed with thousands of participants, and the vast majority were adamant Sanders supporters. The night was unprecedented in the modern Mormon world. https://twitter.com/sltrib/status/710953531021221888 Close observers expected the “Mormon Vote” to go Sanders’s way—the latest polling had him up eight points, Sanders held huge rallies in both states, and Hi…
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…gns showing that they too had knowledge of scripture: If Pastor Bill is my ticket to HEAVEN, I’d rather be in HELL with my FRIENDS Matthew 7:15: Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing. Revelations 22:11: He that is unjust, let him be unjust still. The church initially responded by broadcasting Dunfree’s sermons outdoors. However, they stopped when the strippers began dancing in the streets. While there was a hug-filled detent…
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…re, then we’re going to have to pack our bags, get that passport, buy that ticket, and see it all with our own eyes. This may be a challenging proposition, especially amid an economic downturn, but it is our absolute obligation as the world’s sole—if teetering—superpower. If we want to be in the driver’s seat of a globalized planet, we must know where the road is. Saving the World from the United States Last week, Sarah Palin, a woman who has scar…
Read More…party types who will now turn out enthusiastically. It adds pizzazz to the ticket. An ideological firebrand is the one thing Romney has never been accused of being, and now he can borrow that heat. I believe that Romney or the people close to him pushed Romney for some of these reasons—including getting past the Mormon moment and the focus on Romney’s character. The persistent question about Romney has been: who is this man? What made him who he i…
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…battles over religion and science. Fundamentalist Fervor According to Ron Numbers, in his book The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, the rise of Christian fundamentalism in America didn’t really start in earnest until the early 1900s. For the most part, Christians were not biblical literalists and accepted science—including the ideas that the earth was very old and that living creatures changed through time. A typic…
Read More…o go awry as soon as I arrived at the Met. I had pre-purchased my entrance ticket and the audio tour, only to find out that there was no audio tour. Things did not improve. I started in the Byzantine galley where five gold and silver metal mesh Versace dresses were on display, only they were placed above eye level, making it feel like I was peeking up the mannequins’ skirts. I see London, I see France, I see Versace’s underpants. The crush of peop…
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…Joe Biden impersonation can’t compensate for this defect at the top of the ticket. No number of morally-impassioned surrogates can compensate. We should not forget that a widely-shared yearning for a moral revolution formed the heart of the Sanders movement. We shouldn’t forget that this surge of moral energy surprised the Vermont senator himself, or that it was really a remarkable thing to behold, especially considering the many liabilities of th…
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