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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…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…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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…chance be—the cross?” Clarence replied. “That’s right. I follow him to the cross, but not on the cross. I’m not getting myself crucified.” Today we find ourselves in the cleft between Clarence’s invitation and Robert’s refusal. White Christianity in America is mounting a breach that’s too wide to straddle. A house that sits on a fault line will crumble, forcing those who have lived in it to leap the gap to one side or the other. This predicament i…
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…is destructive or constructive.” Theologians refer to the “scandal of the cross” in recalling the gruesome physical tortures afflicted on the vulnerable, all-too-human body of Jesus in the crucifixion. Though the scandal of the cross is often evoked in theologies of atonement, in the present context, the scandal refers more to fragmentation—both literal and metaphorical—than to at-one-ment; the Piss Christ on display in Avignon is a smashed stumb…
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…udio was opened by a longtime editor at Glamour, Suze Yalof Schwartz. In a phone interview, Yalof Schwartz said that she decided to open the studio when she couldn’t easily find a place to learn meditation. I asked Yalof Schwartz how Unplug differed from the dozens of Buddhist centers that immigrants and hippies have sprinkled across the hills of Southern California. “Meditation is a science,” she replied. “It’s literally build[ing] your brain. Yo…
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…ke our way through the steps of Jesus’s crucifixion, carrying a big wooden cross, so big it has to be hoisted on the shoulders of four or five people. One year, I helped carry the cross from the third station to the fourth, surprised by the power of that touch—I felt it physically. This year, I only got to reach and touch the cross before the people at the front had to lower it to enter a room, and I lost my grip. Our path takes us not to simple r…
Read More…Dennis came home from school with a burn mark on his arm in the shape of a cross. His parents visited the school, looking for answers. When they felt they didn’t get them, they filed suit against both the Mt. Vernon School District and Freshwater. The district settled with the Dennis family last summer, although the suit against Freshwater awaits. Meanwhile, a federal judge in the civil suit against Freshwater issued an order last week directing F…
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…sque, but they are in a minority. Burners are more likely to engage in any number of alternatives to mainstream religion such as Neopaganism, Buddhist meditation, sacred dance, or yoga. Many would agree with an artist from Oklahoma in the next tent over who confided to me, “nature is my god.” Of Other Spaces After crossing the threshold of the entrance and choosing a site, Burners quickly shed clothes and other vestiges of the world outside. The “…
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