Religion Dispatches
…evidence they went to the art. The search took them to Rome, Ravenna, and Turkey; then to Germany. “It took Jesus a long time to die,” Brock says. Not until 965 in northern Germany was the life-sized oak crucifix called the Gero Cross carved. On it, the Christian God was suffering and dying: an image of terror, torture, and desolation. The carving is now in the Cathedral of St. Peter and Maria in Cologne. Could there be a connection that one hund…
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…an You Hear Me Now? At both ends of the continuum, then, advocates of cold-turkey unplugging and techno-wizardry in the context of worship and other spiritual practices can tend to make technology itself an idol. The former case, we are counseled to avert our eyes if we are to have any hope of seeing the divine in each other. In the latter, we are encouraged to bow down obediently if we are to have any hope of seeing each other in the spaces we ha…
Read More…f as someone who for the past two years was inspiring people to work for a better Egypt. Without any clear leadership behind the protests, I thought I would start with him to get a better understanding of what was going on. This revolt has been described by sympathizers as leaderless and by detractors as anarchist. What is the decision making process like? That’s true, there is no clear leadership and that makes communication difficult, but neve…
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…pporting the government or remaining equivocal, we point the way away from Turkey—which, in the long run, is the best possible example for a religiously Muslim society to turn to—and we may even potentially empower Iran. Really. If the people of the Arab world feel that America is not behind them—or worse, is actively trying to hinder their democratization—it’s all too easy to imagine them falling for more radical narratives: a larger narrative of…
Read More…tionist Discovery Institute). In its discussion of the now well-known ties between the Ahmansons and Christian Reconstructionist founder Rousas John Rushdoony, the article provides yet another example of the inability of the media to take seriously Rushdoony’s impact and legacy. While most mentions of Rushdoony are followed by the simplistic and inflammatory tagline “who advocated stoning of homosexuals,” in this case the Christianity Today articl…
Read More…’s next?… If you ruffle the feathers of the people of Franklin County, you better be ready to fight because they know how to counter punch.” Elsewhere in Indiana, a group of worshipers celebrate Christmas in a small one-room white frame church with no electricity. I’m dreaming of a simple Christmas. ‘Simple Gifts’ is this year’s holiday theme at the White House. A new survey from a Christian research group finds that only 37% of Americans include…
Read More…at what goes on between some people’s ears is greasier than a Thanksgiving turkey dipped in used motor oil. But for another thing, this whole idea of the military uniting the nation in the protection of American values is a damned lie. Not because the members of the armed forces don’t fight bravely to defend their nation—they do—but because “American values” is a fiction, created out of whole cloth to cover up the fact that our borders have never…
Read More…m is not inherent amongst Muslims or the religion of Islam. Indonesia (and Turkey, Malaysia, and countries with large Muslim minorities like India), have successfully kept what they wanted of their traditions and integrated what they wanted of other traditions. They are navigating what it means to be modern, which the Arab world is having difficulties with. Because of the popular conflation of Arabs and Muslims, both in terms of number and authent…
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…ls to harm us? Travel to other places in the world, like the Persian Gulf, Turkey, China, India, Brazil, and so on and so forth, and people are hungry with ambition, eager to embrace the economic opportunities that our country’s desire for globalization enabled and sustained in the first place. Now, we are turning away; we are scared of monsters whose shadows stretch across the planet. But let me end with a note of hope. Consider that, for most Am…
Read More…”), to Madeline Albright (“look at the skin on her neck … she looks like a turkey”), to even Sarah Palin: “Palin/Beck? Ridiculous… I was just thinking, what I’m gonna take backseat to a chick? While you’re at it, go shoot a bear! Make some stew! I’m hungry in here.” But, perhaps that’s just run-of-the mill hatred and bigotry that he can get away with. What he’s condemning here is clearly violence—something he would never actually advocate himself,…
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