Religion Dispatches
…at cross purposes. My first thought was to kick myself for leaving my cell phone behind. This would have made a terrific picture. My second thought was to find a less obtrusive spot where I could watch to see how this excruciatingly slow drama would play out. But before I could move, my husband drifted up behind me in his kayak, took one look at the frog and snake and muttered, “I can’t take this.” Over my objections (“But it’s nature!”) Jeff stre…
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…to the non-fetal people with insight into the legislation you’re considering? Because if not: sheez, talk about a giant… ahem… loophole. Shannon Fleck contributed invaluable research and feedback on this article….
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…ld. In the past decade, the Roman Catholic clergy abuse, News of the World phone-hacking, and Wikileaks scandals have marked new, and only very incompletely explored, ethical territory as we sort out the best ways to balance personal privacy and public safety as these are impacted by our engagement with new media. But even given difficulties defining necessary and appropriate boundaries of personal, professional, and institutional transparency, we…
Read More…s right in front of us, difference is on our iPads, in our laptops, in our phones. We hold a whole world of difference every time we open a phone. And the response to in the world around is at best insult, and so often violence, a reality which is the living experience of many you here. Welby also addressed a January gathering of Primates, which voted to suspend the Episcopal Church from questions on doctrine or policy for three years because of i…
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…re no public displays in the lead up to October 21, there were powerful private emotions. “Of course I’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t happen,” a believer who had helped organize the RV caravans prior to May 21 told me. “But I feel like God’s not going to let us down.” A father of three boys who works in the financial industry told me he was fairly sure this would be the end. Not a hundred percent, but close. After May 21, his faith was so shaken…
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…0 separate donors, and fielded more than 5,000 volunteers to doorknock and phone canvass.” Abbott warned the lack of conservative representation in the Liberal party would mean in the short term that “the embryonic Australian Conservatives, the only national political party whose leader backed marriage as it’s always been” would be the beneficiary of the new conservative movement. Meanwhile, Penny Wong, Labor leader in the Senate, criticized the…
Read More…“ethnically Jewish” (if I may quote Schmitz). Orthodox Jews and the Conservative Jewish movement stand by matrilineality as the standard. But Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish movement in the United States, recognizes patrilineal descent as well, and there are Conservative and traditionalist Jewish communities that try (often unofficially) to be welcoming to both matrilineal and patrilineal Jews. In other words, there’s not a hard-and-fast, univ…
Read More…hey distributed “6 million voter guides, 8 million mail pieces, 15 million phone calls, 500,000 doors knocked on by volunteers, and radio advertising covering 56 congressional districts and 22 U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races,” they are now (apparently as I write this) surveying voters to learn “who went to the polls and why.” Instructive for those of us who follow the influence of the religious right on the tea party movement (arguing that it’…
Read More…od answer. I was ashamed that I didn’t have a good answer. Over time, I reflected on the shame I felt. I realized that at some point in the future my kids will ask what I did at this time, and I feel a responsibility for what has been done in the name of my faith to make sure my voice is not silent on this issue any more. Once I came out as an ally, a number of gay friends and family members came out to me, and in terms of love and connectedness…
Read More…if one poorly-trained rogue phonebanker veered off script into an anti-Mormon ad lib, it does not make for a concerted anti-Mormon effort. (Leave that to orthographically challenged “Heaven is Easy” ministry in Florida.) May cool heads prevail as the race heats up in its final weeks. After all, spinning hearsay into broad anti-Mormon conspiracy in order to tar your political opponents is Mormon baiting too….
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