Religion Dispatches
…picked up quickly and loaded the dishwasher, I said yes. Then I checked my phone. Like many people, I keep it on silent unless I’m expecting a call, so I missed a called from my youngest daughter. Instead she left a text message. It read: “your hajj packgat came” (sic) I burst out crying. So much so that my other daughter came forward and said, “What’s wrong?!” I couldn’t speak. I just showed her the text message and cried and hugged her. To her c…
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…eful guy.” After sentencing, in a video of him speaking from prison on the phone, Angeli renounced his lawyer and his mitigation plea of mental illness. The story he tells now is that he’s not crazy but acting on the invitation of President Trump. In preparation to appeal his sentence, he’s hired new attorneys from the NCLU, the Proud Boys’ version of the ACLU. So far, 80 of those charged have been found to have links to extremist groups. The Prou…
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…at, and I apologize for being part of such a mean gesture. In fact I had a phone conversation with a prominent American imam last night—in Islam, we say subhanallah at such coincidences—and he mentioned in passing how offended many white American Muslims were by this very kind of gesture. On reflection, I can see why. I don’t find racial insensitivity humorous directed at me. The least I can do is not support it. And the least I can do is the leas…
Read More…l, where we kids would serve as runners, hustling pledge cards between the phone banks and the clerks in the service of CJP’s massive fundraising operation. And my mother was always going off to some BJE meeting or another, which I knew had something to do with the ethno-religious education we were receiving, whether in parochial school or at the synagogue. It’s only later on in life that people, if they take an interest, begin to comprehend the n…
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…ch Haitians make sense of this tragedy, and I suspect we will find growing numbers of Pentecostal converts as Haitians attempt to find meaning in what can only be described as senseless and inexplicable suffering. Sarah Posner | Judging Pat Robertson’s Influence Evangelical pastors, writers, and activists have stepped up to condemn Pat Robertson’s remarks about Haiti, saying that he does not represent them, nor do comments represent Christianity…
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…elt that little sacristy door slightly creak open as I fumbled to dial the phone to call my mom. Was this it? Sadly, no. My excitement faded as I followed the livestream of the Synod of Bishops, punctuated by anger as I read the summit’s 41-page report. This past Friday I saw New Ways Ministry’s statement, “Synod Report Greatly Disappoints, But We Must Have Hope,” while walking down a busy DC thoroughfare. In it Francis DeBernardo, executive direc…
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…democratic government in decades, led by Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, will help them to tackle these abuses and begin writing LGBT rights into law. But the signs so far are anything but promising. “I’m not interested,” said Win Htein, one of Suu Kyi’s closest aides, when asked if the government planned to do anything about LGBT rights abuses. He was answering amid bursts of seemingly uncontrolled laughter. “Burma is not like the West. Ge…
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…comment. “Ah, top o’ the morning to me,” I thought, as I headed to the backyard with a cup of coffee and Il Papa’s latest digital missive. “New Forms of Shared Awareness” I couldn’t possibly have expected the day to offer much more than a thumbs up from one of leading thinkers and activists on education, spirituality, and social change. But it turned out that the Pope seems to have cribbed much of my commentary on his 2010 letter on digital socia…
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…nsidering new ways of “being church.” His vision is a bold one, but on the phone he quietly shrugs it off, saying it’s just a continuation of the Congregational tradition of more than 400 years. ________________ Frederick Clarkson: In Beyond Resistance you say that we are living in the dawning of a “postmodern” age of Christianity that may last for 500 years. What kind of church do you see emerging? Dorhauer: The first thing I want to say about th…
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…answer to those questions is, in my opinion, a most definite yes. Over the phone, Deaton explained that Collins captures the helplessness of its hero–and, through that sense of helplessness, the dynamics of trauma. “Trauma really is about the moment of freezing,” said Deaton. “What is traumatic is when there’s nothing that can be done.” Collins, he said, sustains a kind of trapped tension throughout the books—that feeling that you’re “never really…
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