Religion Dispatches
…ll, we are available 24/7 for communications via multiple lines of digital contact. Amidst this chaotic stew of interactive entertainment Benedict has worked to figure out, with increasing urgency and frustration, just what the Church’s role ought to be. In his 2011 World Communications Day speech Benedict noted that recent “radical changes” in technology “are not only changing the way we communicate, but communication itself, so much so that it c…
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…On these pages one can find information about vigils, as well as emergency contact information for those students stranded during the city lockdown in the course of the manhunt for the two bombing suspects. Epstein’s Facebook profile picture has been changed to a photograph of Celeste Corcoran and her 18-year-old daughter, Sydney. (Celeste, close friend to a senior member of Epstein’s staff, lost both her legs at the knees in one of the bomb blast…
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…d to convert to Christianity) and Christian converts to Islam “who came in contact with each other before and after the expulsion of the converts from Spain,” noting that “in common with several other texts written in these circles, it presents Muhammad as the messiah.” Most recently, Theodore Pulcini has made a case for its authorship by a medieval monk of the Carmelite order who had converted to Islam. Whatever its origins, the recent growth of…
Read More…tions and joys — but he’s not that good of a snuggler. That intimate human contact — even just a good snuggle before going to sleep — can be enough to sustain even the hardest of heart throughout their lives. If Jesus doesn’t do it for you, there’s always the community. “If we took friendship seriously as a potential site of devotion and sacrifice, far fewer people would feel neglected and unwanted,” Roen quotes from Eve Tushnet. Sure, but frie…
Read More…sociation of Atheist and Freethinkers (MAAF)—the group that put Bradley in contact with the ACLU—reported that nearly 97% of military chaplains are Christian (63% Evangelical), while Christian service members make up 70% of the population. Currently no Humanist or Atheist chaplains approved for military service, though MAAF reports that there are a number of Atheist and Humanist chaplain assistants. The DOD’s ruling this week may, thus, have a m…
Read More…was founded in 1974 by Claude Vorilhon (a.k.a. Rael), who claimed to have contact with enlightened extraterrestrials called the Elohim who genetically engineered humanity. Their movement emphasizes technological Utopianism and has advocated genetically modified food (GMO) as well as cloning, which they regard as a step toward immortality. They also support sexual liberation and have organized campaigns for a woman’s right to go topless in public….
Read More…e God. United Kingdom: Echoes of U.S. Freedom to Discriminate Debate While Americans debated “religious freedom” or “freedom to discriminate” laws, a British politician, Lewes councilor Donna Edmunds, got into hot water suggesting that business owners should be free to refuse to provide services to women and gays. After an outcry, she said she regretted her comments: “I in no way endorse any form of discrimination. I believe in cutting red tape fo…
Read More…agic cases, though it will be even more tragic if—in our rush to slake the American appetite for horror—we once again beat the drums of Satanic Panic instead of asking harder questions about why these murders happened. Assuming these teenage murderers were not following prescribed rituals for human sacrifice or in contact with networks of criminal Satanists, why would they tell such stories? Why did the Houston case have the disturbing feature of…
Read More…funders that neither can instigate genuine reform. She believes that most Americans are disgusted by Washington’s obeisance to big business and expects they will start electing independents to get the country back on track. Yet as important as these issues are, Williamson’s appeal is not based on what she wants to do but on why she is doing it. Since the 1970s, she said, the American left has abandoned the spiritual impulse that fueled movements…
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…oment). That strict time is a kind of compromise—a minimal amount of human contact for the orphans so the orphanage can raise some necessary funds for their care. The human animals arrive, line up, pay their dues, at eleven the crowd is let in, and the waiting begins. And so we wait at the rope line. I recognize accents from the U.S. south, Denmark, the UK, Australia. Most are white, Western tourists. Some missionaries. A documentary film crew is…
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