Religion Dispatches
…cost of true discipleship. The price it was called upon to pay was all too cheap…We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale; we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition…Was there ever a more terrible and disastrous instance of Christianizing the world than this? It’s regrettable, I think, that “cheap grace” has turned into a kind of meme that Rod Dreher can toss into his debate with Andrew Sullivan without…
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…about Dominionist Theology there! The Rachel Maddow show is also the only MSNBC show so far to even bring up the word “Dominionist.” I view with a jaundiced eye these journalists who think that by the mere act of writing an 800 word op-ed they’re going to wave a wand over people of faith and make their beliefs go away. Not Happening. Yes, not every conservative Christian is a Dominionist, but to say a movement doesn’t exist, without even being ab…
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…n total, a staggering 3.5% of all respondents—86 individuals—identified themselves as being the victims of such violence in an Episcopal church (47 individuals), school (22 individuals), or workplace (17 individuals). The percentages are even more striking when looking at the data for transgender and non-binary respondents. Nearly 75% of Episcopal clergy who identify as such reported being the victims of sexual misconduct of some kind, as did 100%…
Read More…plugged-in lifestyle doesn’t really get at the heart of the issue. I think the Amish, of all people, have it right. It’s not so much about what you as an individual are doing or not doing, as the effect technology has on the community: Why not make life easier and just put [a phone] in the house? “What would that lead to?” another Amish man asked me. “We don’t want to be the kind of people who will interrupt a conversation at home to answer a tel…
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…n to imams online, call imams live on television shows, and even access imams via cell phones to receive new fatwas (religious rulings) for questions they may have. The recent proliferation of people claiming to have credentials to issue fatwas has created confusion and frustration among some Muslims (IOL Technology). Who should decide, if anyone, what authoritative texts should be accessible, and to whom—when anyone with an internet hookup and a…
Read More…slogans about immigration reform. On line I heard that parishes with large numbers of undocumented immigrants had received many tickets. No outside food or water, statues, gifts or selfie sticks were permitted. Despite 10,000 folding chairs, most of us would have no choice but to stand. Once in my appointed place behind the last row of seats, I found myself in a community of fellow pilgrims, lottery winners from local parishes, nearby colleges, an…
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…or his bishops. After all, there’s only so much a pope can do, as Patti Miller explains on RD. At the conclusion of the 261-page Amoris Laetitia, Francis says “All family life is a ‘shepherding’ in mercy.” I think he really believes that. Sadly, he cannot bring himself to practice what he preaches. By not extending the sacrament of matrimony to all Catholics, he denies us the very compassion he extols so highly. For a man whose papacy has focused…
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…at their clientele has been diverse—racially, socioeconomically, and in terms of sexual orientation. When I asked how socioeconomically diverse MNDFL’s target market could be when even the cheapest package charges $26 per hour of class time, Rinzler pointed me toward their beginners’ special, which offers unlimited classes for the first month for $50. My sister, who recently took MNDFL’s 45-minute-long sound-based meditation class, described the a…
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…beyond its membership base. “What people don’t understand is that how many numbers of people in the Nation is beside the point in terms of the Nation’s influence,” said Walters. Walters remembers Farrakhan speaking at a Washington DC convention center to a packed house. A Washington Post reporter was taken aback that Farrakhan had come to town without the newspaper knowing about it, and that without any mainstream media coverage, the speech attrac…
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…rominent African American Christian Right figure, Apostle and Bishop Harry Jackson. An influential opponent of marriage equality, Jackson was a frequent speaker at Christian Right political conferences who campaigned for the reelection of Donald Trump in 2020. Hamon maintains that, since his early days with Latter Rain, the world has entered into what he calls the Third Reformation (the Birth of the Church and the Protestant Reformation being the…
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