Religion Dispatches
…h I do expect our supplies will run out in about 48 hours because we’re the types that feed the neighbors.) Mitt Romney, this tropical storm is in your wheelhouse. I bet your pragmatic mind is spinning through all the logistics. 72 hour kits for everyone! You can do this!…
Read More…he fate of the nation’s first major party presidential candidate. But I’ll bet you a twelve pack of caffeine-free Diet Coke and a dozen pink-frosted sugar cookies that there is no anti-Mormon phonebanking script in use by Catholics for Obama. Anywhere. Is anti-Mormonism real? Yes. But even if one poorly-trained rogue phonebanker veered off script into an anti-Mormon ad lib, it does not make for a concerted anti-Mormon effort. (Leave that to ortho…
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…e is any passion at all in these recitations, it is a passion in the head. Better than none, I suppose. But if we want to galvanize people who themselves are not struggling around the grim state of the economy, reeling off the facts won’t cut it. People must be invited to engage directly with those who suffer: that is where transformation can begin. So yes, religious progressives should at least try to temper the bad habit of imagining they can r…
Read More…The result, though, is it makes it easier to legally shoot people. Now, I bet you see where this is going. The column is so terrific it really needs to be read in its entirety. Seriously. Read it. But Argento does see a potential downside to the plan. Of course, some people may object because of all of that stuff in the Bible about caring for the poor and being your brother’s keeper and such. They may point to the Sermon on the Mount, in which Je…
Read More…express obsolete ideology? Or would blogging help the pope realize that some of his teachings are a wee bit outdated? What next, Pope Benedict on Facebook? If so, you can bet your mortgage that plenty of “good” Catholics will be editing their profiles before they ”friend His Holiness.”…
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…unctioning autonomously from male authority, even in the process of finding a mate. Girls are to rely on their fathers to do this for them and remain in submission to their fathers until they have been given over to submit to their husbands. These organizations all promote literature, lectures, conferences, and other materials intended to promote this perspective, as well as the starkly delineated gender norms and expectations upon which this view…
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…her than try to change God’s standards” (1-14-08). 6.) TOP TEN COMPARISONS BETWEEN RELIGION AND DENTISTRY: Between Google ads for “oral sedation” and “dental fear,” blogger Mark Wright writes thoughtfully about many things. On this list he points out, helpfully, that “Both Dentistry and Religion benefit financially from your sins” and reminds us that “In Religion there is the promise of Heaven. In Dentistry there is only Hell.” 7.) BOOKLIST’S TOP…
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…er says mildly, “something very disturbing about the state of intellectual freedom at Catholic universities. Where, if not in Catholic universities, can controversial issues be discussed?” One must pose this question to leaders of our many Catholic colleges aud universities: Regis College and St. Michael’s University in Toronto, for example. Obedience, even servility, to ecclesial power reigns. Critical Catholic thinkers who diverge from the views…
Read More…threat of eternal damnation. Both liberals and conservatives need to do a better job at digging deeply into the scriptures to find ways to sow affection and dispel the discord we inevitably create with our textual wars over sexual orientation and gender identity. If either liberal or conservative interpretations continue to widen the rift between us, then neither side has gone deep enough in its understanding of scripture. Many on the religious r…
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…l world with adolescence hints at this as a kind of rite of passage—a time betwixt and between childhood and full adult responsibilities. Much like game worlds, it occurs within a space where actions have been stripped of real-world consequences, though from the first, we discover that Zoe has discovered ways to make what happens in this space count: she’s turned to it as a space of religious conversion and political activism. One of the recurring…
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