Religion Dispatches
…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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…c idea of service and charity. The early iteration of the Temple, based in Indianapolis in the 1950s, was completely integrated in a city that still resembled the Jim Crow South. Jones himself adopted numerous black and Korean children whom he referred to as his “rainbow family.” He also personally helped desegregate public buildings and institutions in Indianapolis, and when racial violence flared up he would walk through the badly hit neighborho…
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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…ualism is bad. Also, he notes but offers no explanation for the decreasing number of marriages in many countries. I am glad to see that in Section 34 he understands this basic fact of contemporary western culture: The ideal of marriage, marked by a commitment to exclusivity and stability, is swept aside whenever it proves inconvenient or tiresome. The fear of loneliness and the desire for stability and fidelity exist side by side with a growing fe…
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…tian radical A. J. Muste calling Moses the organizer of “Brickmakers Union Number 1” and a pacifist Russian rabbi named Tamaret—wove them all into a new Telling of the tale of freedom. In that Telling, the then ongoing, even now unfinished, struggle of Black America for freedom was interwoven with the ancient story of the Israelites’ struggle to end their slavery under Pharaoh. Where the old Haggadah had what seemed to me a silly argument about ho…
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…w dozen yards of the riders and take pictures of the scene with their cell phone cameras. Traffic on College Avenue begins to pick up. “You’re protesting God!” a motorist hollers when he catches sight of one of the Soulforce banners. Finally a slender young man wearing a “CBC Soccer” jacket ventures all the way to the sidewalk. “I just kind of want to show them I care,” says Jonathan Jacobs, a junior at the college. Jacobs, whose family moved to C…
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…age. His 2012 book, The Buddha Walks into a Bar, has sold widely. Over the phone, I asked Rinzler why he and Burrows had chosen to establish the studio as a for-profit company. “We really wanted to make sure we had all the resources we need for supporting people who are trying meditation for the first time,” Rinzler explained. Because they’re a business, there’s more professionalism. The teachers they’ve hired show up on time, and, as Rinzler put…
Read More…roop spent his entire childhood attending evangelical Christian schools in Indianapolis and Colorado Springs. At one school, Heritage Christian School in Indianapolis, a high school science teacher would begin his class everyday by sharing his visions of the apocalypse to his terrified students: “He would go on and on,” Stroop says, “and talk about how much sin is increasing in the world, like ‘Look how friendly we’re becoming toward gay people. T…
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…ls—sound a lot like the evangelical institutions I attended growing up, in Indianapolis, Indiana and Colorado Springs, Colorado. As The New York Times reports, Maine’s Supreme Court brief noted that the schools “candidly admit that they discriminate against homosexuals, individuals who are transgender and non-Christians.” This stance is par for the course for evangelical schools, which frequently refer to themselves simply as “Christian schools” o…
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…supporting the RFRA were, as documented in this well-reported piece in the Indianapolis Star, motivated to provide legal protections to businesses that refuse to provide services to same-sex couples or for same-sex weddings, other comments by lawmakers show their intent was broader. Republican Rep. Bruce Borders suggested anesthesiologists who oppose abortion should not have to anesthetize women undergoing the procedure. The Indianapolis Star repo…
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