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Spiritual Unplugging, Or What to Do When There is Wifi at the Ashram

By Matt Hamilton

…self-interrogation boiled, my hand extended to the right. I reached for my phone, but I found nothing. At first I laughed at my instinct, my muscle memory. The phone, with its glowing screen, gave me solace and control. But I was tied to my cushion for another hour, and in this ashram for another day, so email would have to wait. I panicked. My heart raced. Would my editor be asking for me? Would a reply from that politician’s secretary sit unansw…

Pop-Culture Angels Are More Than Just Embarrassing Kitsch

By Ed Simon

…y from Victorian sentimentalism. Such angels are on sale at reduced price; cheap wares for cheap faith. It would be an error, however, to fully dismiss pop culture angels. Despite the fact that representations of angels in film and television, comics and music, paperback novels and posters, are filtered through market concerns, such pop culture can still speak to human meaning—and because of that they merit our attention. Besides, the bulk of art…

Fight to the ‘Death’ and Go ‘Hungry’ at Hunger Games Camp

By Jodi Eichler-Levine

…ave come to a summer camp near you, in the great state of Florida. Yes, in Florida, the land where the real death of an African-American child can be excused in a court of law, the fake “deaths” of predominantly white children are making quite a lot of headlines. In the meantime, as these children were undergoing pretend suffering at summer camp, hunger striking inmates at Guantanamo Bay—off the coast of Florida—were experiencing very genuine suff…

Billy Graham, Most Famous Religious Figure of 20th C, Dies at 99

By Randall Balmer

…diom of the culture in order to communicate the gospel. While a student in Florida, Graham felt a divine call to preach and began doing so on street corners and, later, as a supply preacher. Several months before completing his studies at Florida Bible Institute, Graham was ordained a Southern Baptist minister. Feeling he needed still more education, however, he enrolled at Wheaton College in the western suburbs of Chicago. There he met, and event…

United Methodist Church Votes Against Israel Divestment

By Shalom Goldman

…to the future of the church. This year the conference is meeting in Tampa, Florida—and some hot-button issues are on the agenda—among them the call for the church to divest from firms doing business in Israel. On Tuesday the conference voted against a motion that the church divest from three international firms that have business interests related to Israel’s military rule in the Palestinian territories: Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, and Hewlet…

How Much Did Jesus Care About Sex?

By Peter Laarman

…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…

Beyond Alarmism and Denial in the Dominionism Debate

By Anthea Butler

…church, they’re marinating, so to speak, in the the various teachings of a number of people. I’ve covered many an event where I’ve been waiting in line to get in, and the inevitable conversation with the people around you goes something like this: they ask first where you go to church, and second which teachers you admire, and then you get into a long conversation about the relative virtues of all of them. A really good example of how all these te…

Episcopal Church Assault Data Reveals the Dark Side of Inclusive Christianity

By Charlotte Dalwood

…a random sample size and therefore isn’t statistically representative. The number of individuals reporting victimization in Episcopal spaces is alarming nonetheless. However, I would argue the data is more likely to under- than to overestimate the scope of the abuse that occurs. To see why, the survey results must be interpreted in light of the Episcopal Church’s larger culture of inaction around sexual violence. See no evil, hear no evil… LGBTQ+…

Florida Gov Cozies to Local Tea Party Xenophobes

By Julie Ingersoll

…ck Scott announced his proposed budget in front of tea partiers in central Florida, instead of in Tallahassee where the budget has been announced in the past. Clearly designed as pageantry to flatter the tea partiers, the Governor boasted some $5.2 billion in cuts (only to later have to admit that the number was inflated and that the cuts were “only” $3.5 billion). The announcement of our state budget, by the way, was held in the Eustis First Bapt…

Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired

By Rachel Wagner

…ability of cell phones to be used for impure activities, some Jewish cell-phone users have requested so-called “kosher” phones. The idea is to offer conservative Jews a phone that is free of “corrupting influences” of the sort that are already avoided by ultra-orthodox Jews through a ban on television and some radio. Reuters reported in February 2008 that Bezeq Israel Telecom launched a new “kosher” landline phone service, which will block calls…