Religion Dispatches
…ps, dresses, and scarves. I feel like I need one more scarf. Not for sheer number, but for style; there are so many styles, and one has to decide what works best individually. I have my long prayer scarves that do not need any pins to be neatly kept in place. But they are really long, and I wish I had at least one as neat, but shorter. I want to be hands-free and secure at the same time. I have long rectangular shapes that get draped, and I will u…
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…e heady days of $2 a gallon gasoline. When Bachmann promised the return of cheap fuel, she tapped into that mythic connection between Americans and their cars. It isn’t simply that American’s worship the car or make it a sacred object; although one could not be blamed for thinking so. The Los Angeles Times reports that Americans spend almost 100 billion a year on new car purchases alone, not counting used car purchases or maintenance of existing c…
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…dimension of empathy. Perhaps the best tribute to him came from one of our number who famously and irreverently said: “I put my trust in Howard Moody and God, in that order.” We are forever grateful for this good man. ____________ Editor’s Note: As a generalist, an editor frequently must guide and shape work on unfamiliar topics. Having heard only that Rev. Moody was one of those “hip, old preachers in the Village,” I set out to do the obligatory…
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…ate break-in. The first international oil embargo and the disappearance of cheap gas. The US embassy rooftop retreat in Saigon. Disco. Nixon’s resignation took out a symbol of corruption, but the demoralizing corruption lived on. It is not surprising, then, that the nation’s anxiety was marked by a turn to religion, even if that turn was unexpected. Some protestant mainline churches that had been engaged in the civil rights movement, well, moved o…
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…t capital strike. The hardworking and hard-pressed folks sitting up in the cheap seats would cheer him on—and maybe even think about voting for him again, and voting for Democrats this fall. One little problem with this scenario: Obama has surrounded himself with once-and-future high-income individuals who are themselves highly susceptible to supply-side dogma that says the rich must be curtsied to and coddled if the nation is to prosper. We shoul…
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…engaging in racist acts (if it quacks like a duck, etc), but they’re also fortifying the racism of Southern Baptist seminaries so that these institutions can be racist for them. There is no creed but the Bible—as long as it’s a Bible read with white eyes. Regardless of the best intentions of these six white men, the white Christianity they proselytize is life-denying for people of color. The Christianity taught at these seminaries, which they hav…
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…God loves you because your priest told you so? And so on. These were not cheap shots. He was serious. He loved us, he loved his job, and his questions were troubling. Some students wept. At which point he would offer Kleenexes. It was in Fr. Cavanaugh’s class that I began to see that all true education is intensely personal. Dawkins’ distaste for an officially atheist academy may be mere iconoclasm. But maybe not. Maybe it’s closer to the truth…
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…There, she found Ted at the nadir of his professional life, moving between cheap motels with his wife Gayle and two of their five children as he went door-to-door, selling life insurance to strangers. From the pinnacle of evangelical leadership to this? Pelosi later told an interviewer that the story of Haggard’s exile was too compelling in its complexity to pass up. How the mighty had fallen! She brought along her camera, and the Trials of Ted Ha…
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…Muslims to a stereotypical hardcore Salafi or Wahabi iconoclast. Such an unfortunate framing of Muslims, however, ignores the fact that many images of the Prophet have been patronized or revered by Sunni and Shia Muslims alike as evident from Ottoman and Persian art through the centuries. Moreover, such an ugly incident ignores that a grave injustice has been committed against the faculty member. Now, a similar approach is being taken towards the…
Read More…hese are big words — hope, forgiveness and peace. They rarely have the megaphone that the party of “nope” enjoys. Nevertheless, they are words that religious people need to protect with all our hearts and souls. We too need a department of homeland security and its job is to protect our words. Let’s start with hope. When a tragedy happens, it often steals our hope. The 9-11 bombing is a terrible tragedy. It is a tragedy with causes in a larger hum…
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