Religion Dispatches
…gusher on the ocean floor and big birds who may never again fly across the sky. Americans are as helpless as a president reduced to praying that someone, anyone, even the hand of a god in the sky, can stop this oil gusher. The truth is, we did not get to this place overnight, or sixty days ago when this started. We arrived at this point of helplessness when technology began to overrun our ability to put it within the context of our moral and relig…
Read More…hen the moon is full, well, even in the wee hours of the morning it shines high in the sky: like a big pizza pie. Still it’s nice to get greetings from my friends in other parts of the world, or read their updates. So, the queen is preparing to leave us. We will miss the bitter and the sweet, the difficult and the sublime of her visit, this holy month of Ramadan. Now all of our attention is given over to one thing, and one thing only: party, party…
Read More…ly held in the air by a turbo of wind in a wind chamber. I opted for this, cheaper (in cost and thrill) since I’d already done the real sky diving at my 55th birthday. At that time, I encountered interesting responses from friends, especially those in my age range. These were overwhelmingly negative. Each reflected some kind of fear, whether latently or explicitly expressed. Fear was not an aspect of it for me, except I admit, at the very last sec…
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…ans would be attracted to, appreciate and consider careers in science (the number is decreasing annually). I bet we’d have more productive conversation among students and leaders of science and religion around the many profound issues in our nation that engage both: abortion, medical care, stem cells, homosexuality, and genomic research. The battle rhetoric would fade and, more than likely, movies like Expelled wouldn’t be made in the first place….
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…d just perished in the Towers we’d seen every day from campus, filling the sky to the south. I remembered bumping into tourists, every few days, who’d ask: “which way’s north?” Or south, or east, or west. I’d smile, and turn south, and point out the World Trade Center. I’d tell them: Just keep an eye on that, and you’ll always know where to go. But there was just smoke, and it stole more and more of the sky, overcoming that beautiful September mor…
Read More…es ECI’s leadership – knows this to be the case. Which makes ECI’s video a cheap lie — yet another in a long litany of desperate efforts by the far right to convert the largely liberal American Jewish community to neo-conservatism, hawkish policies on Israel, and the belief that “Barack Hussein Obama” is a Muslim. That said, there actually are two interesting forms of antisemitism going on here. First is the antisemitism of ECI itself. To tug at…
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…I fervently wish that Mr. Obama would say a bit more about the problem of cheap grace. Reminding us that people who work very hard for very little are not the abusers of cheap grace, but that others in well-feathered nests who are preaching sacrifice might be in real trouble on the cheap grace front. Obama cannot and should not condemn those in the electorate who buy into Romney’s “there will be showers of blessing” message, but he probably does …
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…of the best, most rigorous tracking of mass attendance; other surveys find higher percentages using more generous methodologies.) The number of priests and nuns has declined precipitously; from 58,000 to 38,000 for priests and from 125,000 to 50,000 for nuns. Despite a significantly larger population, there are 1,300 fewer parishes, with an average of just one priest per parish; some 3,500 parishes have no resident priest. The sacraments are no lo…
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…le ourselves before this sublime work. But for now I will not rest, I will not sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight, until I hear the end of this violation. And neither should you, for it is the abomination that brings desolation. The final reckoning will not register which airline company boasted the most freshly painted fleet or ranked last in customer satisfaction. But there are some sacred goods of such high ideal as we instead are called to…
Read More…ughter Bella was hospitalized.) Organizers said they had distributed 1,800 tickets, and the pews in the church were nearly full, with several hundred, if not nearly a thousand people in attendance. Gingrich was the only candidate to appear; Staver, the “forum’s” moderator took pains to point out that they had invited the other candidates. Santorum and Ron Paul had commitments outside of Florida. Mitt Romney, the candidate Staver and other leaders…
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