Religion Dispatches
…T OUT OF HARVARD LAW, HE “WORKED” AS AN ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ACTIVIST IN CHICAGO. HE THEN ENTERED POLITICS AT THE STATE LEVEL AND THEN MOVED TO THE NATIONAL LEVEL—WHERE HE SCRAMBLES TODAY WITH VERY MINIMAL EXPERIENCE IN ANYTHING—WHILE OTHER PEOPLE WRITE HIS SPEECHES FOR HIM. IN ALL HIS TIME IN THE STATE AND NATIONAL LEGISLATURES—HE’S NEVER LAUNCHED ANY IMPORTANT LEGISLATION WHATSOEVER. MOSTLY, HE’S OUT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT. HE CLAIMS TO BE “PRO…
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…d vote often, as the Chicago political machine used to say. The “post-partisan” political faith Obama has come to embrace offers more help than conservatism but fewer guarantees than secular liberalism. It doesn’t demand political loyalty, it asks for earnest acclamation. To conservatism’s business elite and secular liberalism’s political elite, it responds with yet another ruling class: a “responsible” elite. There’s an element of the superhero s…
Read More…t. Do Rastafarians and Quakers have something in common? A Hindu temple in Chicago inaugurated the Swami Vivekananda Spiritual Center this past weekend. The space will be used for yoga and meditation. It is dedicated to the Hindu leader who broke onto the American scene at the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religion, also held in Chicago. The World’s Parliament may return to the United States, as Dallas has made the list of possible host cities alongs…
Read More…the city to one whopping lawsuit that is extremely likely to succeed,” as Chicago attorney Dan Lauber told Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lynn Sweet. “A federal law adopted by a Republican Congress makes the denial the Republicans seek blatantly illegal.” Several high-profile opponents of the mosque plan—including the American Center for Law and Justice and the Anti-Defamation League—have in the past defended the Religious Land Use and Institutional…
Read More…t’s food is certified kosher: These days Evanger’s Dog & Cat Food Co. near Chicago sells dog and cat food that, in a manner of speaking, is kosher. They are deemed usable during the Passover holiday, though not kosher for human consumption, and have the endorsement of the venerable Chicago Rabbinical Council. Evanger’s website touts its products by showing a photo of a dog wearing a yarmulke. Not to be undone on the ‘animals eating kosher’ front,…
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…social media simply because we’re good at it. Look at what happened with Susan G. Komen—critics overreached and took it too far in attacking Planned Parenthood. Here is a really wonderful connective organization for women who have had breast cancer and one that helps raise money for research, but their supporters felt betrayed. There was a huge social media storm in the wake of the criticism to the point where many Komen executives have resigned—p…
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…ght of attending Converted: From Abortion Provider to Pro-Life Activist, a Chicago conference for former abortion clinic staff, made me wary. As a pro-choice Christian who tends to see anti-abortion activists as zealots with a “by any means necessary” mentality I didn’t know what to expect from a day-long meeting of new converts offering the faithful behind-the-curtain peeks at what they call the “abortion industry.” After making my way past table…
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…olor further calls into question the use of this abusive practice.” As the numbers have grown, so have the numbers of critics, Wired reports, citing a series of “scathing reports and documentaries” released in 2012 by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. That same year, the US Senate held its first-ever hearings on…
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…urses in Delhi, using curricula from a martial arts academy she attends in Chicago. Demand for classes jumped dramatically after the Pandey murder, a situation which Nancy Lanoue, the Chicago school’s founder, compared to America in 1993: “When the Mia Zapata murder occurred… self-defense was getting attention from many folks who usually ignored it.” Lanoue (who, like Epperson, is versed in Buddhist philosophy), sees a distinction between self-def…
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…o. I vaguely recall sometime late in high school asking a friend what band sang that song about Uncle John on the mixtape in her car stereo. When she filled me in, I thought, “Huh. So that’s the Grateful Dead. Maybe I have heard them before and didn’t realize it.” A year or so later, half-way through my freshman year of college in 1989, I went to my first Dead show near Chicago. I didn’t have a ticket (and didn’t care so much about the music, real…
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