Religion Dispatches
…tter—from “ummm, never heard of them ever” to “why did they steal Eminem’s award???” (At least Justin Bieber’s aggrieved fans were otherwise occupied, busily pasting creative edits all over Best New Artist winner Esperanza Spalding’s Wikipedia entry.) They may not (yet) be a household name, but where the technological revolutions of the 1990s and early 2000s had their aural counterpart in Radiohead (especially OK Computer), today belongs to Arcade…
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…the world will stop turning; or at least it will for the daytime soap opera As The World Turns, which officially ends after 53 years. With its ratings plummeting for more than a decade, As The World Turns is only the most recent casualty of a changing daytime market. The American daytime soap itself, that long-maligned and much-loved genre, seems to be on its deathbed. For those interested in the relationship between religion and American popular…
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…e loophole Sullivan gives himself on the matter of sexual freedom is the characteristic heresy of progressive Christians: “It is to progressive Christianity as the heresy of the prosperity gospel, or nationalism, is to conservative American Christianity.” Just two points about this. First, it has not been my experience that progressive Christians are blind to the problems of a hypersexualized culture or that they/we are saying libertinism is accep…
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…tside Episcopal churches—they experience them within Episcopal churches at alarmingly high rates, too. And the denomination’s structures (canon law included) have consistently failed to protect them. New data reveals the scope of the abuse crisis Buried deep in the Reports to the General Convention are the results of a survey, conducted in 2020, that quantifies the violence epidemic. Based on a similar survey conducted in 2017 amongst United Metho…
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…ompaniment, chanted on iPod, and piped from watches into earplugs—they are available in as many digital forms as there are devices to access them. Hopeful worshippers are even constructing their own online religious “texts” in the form of digitized prayers, video accompaniment to existing religious texts, and the recording and sharing of recitation of prayers and liturgy. But as religious texts go digital, they acquire new qualities. What are the…
Read More…ork for you. The article literally discusses someone getting Third-World peasants to loan her a cell in a pinch. You don’t get much more entitled than that. Still, there is something to be said for the virtues of unhooking from technology. I sometimes wonder if the convenience of having a cell is worthwhile, given that one of its most common uses is to find out where my wife got to in Kohl’s. But it seems to me that focusing on the micro-trend of…
Read More…seething about the pope’s visit with Kim Davis. A gay man who refuses to vacate his Roman Catholic pew, Robby’s Facebook post on the topic read: “The Pope went to see Kim Davis to ask for forgiveness for his part in the history of bigotry that formed her messed up beliefs that got her ass thrown in jail.” I get where he is coming from. But to me, the most important thing about the papal visit was not the agenda he upheld, but the stance he held u…
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…nalism is good, but individualism 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 sid…
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…r gigs. Rinzler and Burrow’s new meditation studio, MNDFL, is just a block away from Washington Square Park, in one of New York City’s most chic areas. For the price of two entrees at Denny’s (plus a dessert), you can drop in for a 45-minute session that includes a brief introduction, a guided meditation, and a debrief Q&A with one of MNDFL’s 27 teachers. Special deals are available for your first month of visits. “In this branded form, it offers…
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…2017 Pride event hosted by the department’s Office of Civil Rights and GLIFAA (LGBT+Pride in Foreign Affairs Agencies). On Wednesday, June 28, the State Department will host an interactive online conversation about discrimination and violence against vulnerable groups, including LGBTI people. Catholic Church: Bishops respond differently to Pope Francis Two U.S. church leaders have demonstrated the range of opinion and division within the hierarchy…
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