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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…tries in Washington DC, who are already engaged with community organizing around economic justice issues. Jones’ community, which has the second-highest unemployment rate in the DC area, has been fighting a Wal-Mart in their neighborhood, pushing for a community benefit agreement with the retailer that would guarantee jobs for local residents who desperately need them. As a faith leader in an African-American congregation with a social gospel hist…
Read More“Excuse me sir, are you Jewish?” For years, even the most vaguely semitic-looking man walking the streets of hipster (North) Williamsburg couldn’t avoid the question from one of the young Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men posted at the streetcorners. I have curly hair. I got it often. Now the Chabad have turned it up a notch with “Unite the Beards,” a slick and schlocky video campaign designed to show hipsters that hey, we all have beards… so maybe we’r…
Read MoreAn emailed press release on the American Bible Society’s 4th annual “State of the Bible” survey arrives with the subtle subject line: “Bible Engaged More Generous.” Exhibit A is a chart showing that, indeed, the “Bible Engaged” appear to give a far larger amount of money to nonprofits than do “Bible Skeptics,” with averages of $3,259 and $584 respectively. In an effort to further emphasize the generosity of the Most Biblical among us, it also not…
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…ls out from the group, the defection looks lackluster. Soon-to-be released numbers sent to RD from the Public Religion Research Institute show that young evangelicals actually support Trump more than evangelicals over 50 do. Furthermore, if evangelical stronghold Liberty University is any indication, Trump can count on college-educated young evangelicals on November 8th as well. Since president of Liberty University, Jerry Falwell, Jr., endorsed h…
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…ed, applies here. These exchanges are neither surprising nor particularly groundbreaking. As Justice Breyer rightly observed, religion was lurking just under the surface of Tuesday’s arguments. Many disputes in recent years have involved claims that employers who hold certain religious beliefs deserve exemptions from generally applicable laws, including nondiscrimination laws designed to protect LGBTQ people. The Court’s 2018 Masterpiece Cakeshop…
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…as a Master’s student at Fuller working the switchboard part-time, and the number one phone call that came through went something like this: “Can you connect me to C. Peter Wagner’s Church Growth Institute? I’d like to buy some materials.” No one was happier than I was when he retired from Fuller and moved to Colorado Springs! I felt like I worked at a catalog call-in center. Seriously. I would never have expected to be talking about Wagner in con…
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…interpreted in light of the Episcopal Church’s larger culture of inaction around sexual violence. See no evil, hear no evil… LGBTQ+ Episcopalians, and especially those who identify under the transgender and nonbinary umbrella, were far more likely than their cisgender and heterosexual counterparts to cite a fear that nothing would be done or that they’d be retaliated against as their top reasons not to report instances of sexual abuse to denominat…
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…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…
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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