Religion Dispatches
…en you start of your regular day something sits like some a canceled movie ticket in lump on the top of your stomach. You belch a lot and it reeks of what ever this lump was made of, all morning long if not all day. On the other hand, the third day is the day your body starts to accept that it is fasting, requiring less food. Anyone prone to headaches those first two days due to severe drops in blood sugar and dehydration will be over it now and s…
Read More…— they want to go see Allah, I’m all in favor of giving them a first class ticket if — if they don’t respect human life and dignity. What Jesus is getting at, Mr. Hannity, is that those who truly have respect for human life and dignity understand that it is better to love an enemy than it is to hate them and wish for (or facilitate) their destruction. Hannity is no better than the fanatics he condemns since has no respect for their lives or their…
Read More…candidate. Reacting to a possible Cruz nomination, the 92 year-old Dole this week warned of “cataclysmic” losses for the GOP with the “extremist” Senator at the top of the ticket. But which of the other candidates could get realistically get the nomination? “I think it’s Trump,” said Dole. …
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…story of the white South, is comprised today of about 20 percent non-white parishioners, for example. A similar number holds for Southern Baptists. This puts them about mid-point on the scale derived from a Pew study of “most and least racially diverse religious groups.” So does the rise to leadership of younger church leaders raised in a post-civil rights history shed of some of the mythologies of the past. Posts from the African American Reforme…
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…hday meal. I could find them “distasteful,” or “unappetizing,” or any of a number of options my mother would suggest. My brother could “disagree” with Nixon’s policies, but he could not profess hate for the man. “You don’t know him personally. You cannot possibly ‘hate’ him,” she would insist. “Hate” was a big-ticket word not to be squandered on annoying siblings or corrupt politicians. My mother’s semantic ethics on this point have stayed with me…
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…oommate over a period of months in 1970. Although I can’t find an official number, a casino employee tells us over 5,000 tickets have been sold; 5,000 pilgrims who’ve made the trek from around the country to pay their respects to Annabelle, and are willing to wait hours to do so. On the convention floor, an eclectic group of vendors hocks their wares, from Ouija boards and books about ghost hunting to bath bombs shaped like horror movie icons. The…
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…vel 3 sex offender won $10 million in the state lottery from a $20 scratch ticket. Convicted six times of indecent assault and battery (including two counts for a child under 14), he may pay a heavy fine for failing to notify his parole officer of relocation, but worry not: The money will be his. Finally, in South Carolina, a 10-year-old boy shot his 9-year-old sister when she failed to relinquish a bag of chips. Authorities say that when she refu…
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…and the church insisted that Catholics opposed the decision, a significant number of Catholics similarly ignored them, having decided that on matters of sexuality the hierarchy wasn’t to be trusted? It’s that split within Catholicism that freed up Catholics to affiliate with whatever political party best met their priorities: social justice issues for left-leaning Catholics and sexual restraint, law-and-order, and a muscular national defense for r…
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…as all it took to separate me from God, then I was gonna accept my one-way ticket to hell… Reserve me a seat in the bar car!” It was through the patience and love of his friend D.E. Paulk in Atlanta (whose ministry family suffered its own scandals), that Bakker experienced what he called “a grace evolution.” While Bakker continued to drink and carry on, D.E. simply loved him through it, gently pushing Bakker to return to God. Bakker writes that he…
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…y well for himself, but he decided to become the pastor of an impoverished parish in East Harlem. He and [his wife] Violet moved to 116th Street, and his life changed. He was really committed to his neighborhood and became increasingly radicalized as he witnessed his neighbors’ and parishioners’ attempts to get jobs, failure to find jobs, his failure to help, his sense that even in the ways in which he could help he was making things worse, and hi…
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