Religion Dispatches
…ou need to know to keep on reading? I’d cheerfully watch that man read the phone book. So, when my buddy Rev. El Mundo sent me the link to the comedian’s message, I eagerly clicked on it. I was surprised when I saw this wasn’t a clip of his latest hysterical stand up, but an essay he penned for the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog. The topic of his essay was how he came to be an atheist. The whole piece is here. While there is humor in the pie…
Read More…ear in agreement with what we are doing. I may ask for your church’s name, phone number, and Web site to verify your stand. What I see as the sin at the heart of Grizzard and Jones’ actions—as well as at the heart of anyone who seeks to violently control the free will or belief of others—is lust. These men lust for control; and in their lust they objectify others, people they call “heretics” or “sinners.” Lust, in and of itself, is not a bad thing…
Read More
…, were taught Christianity primarily in the context of oppression, second-class Christianity. And we have a great propensity to need to have a second-class among us. When people are disempowered, they are often empowered at someone else’s expense. Whether it’s women or children or gay people. It’s always the same thing, the same thing played out with different people. And how do we break that? How do we get through that? What has to happen is that…
Read More
…fight. If someone had pressed into his fingers at that pivotal moment the phone number for The Trevor Project, he might reach out and hear a voice of reassurance, a voice that gave him hope for life by, in part, repudiating the so-called biblical teaching that who he is amounts to an offense against God. If he’d had a sense of belonging to a community that embraced him for who he is, maybe his hope wouldn’t be so fully shattered. But while other…
Read More
…rians how to do so. I liked God in America and will use portions of it in class for years to come. [Full disclosure: I was interviewed a few times by the show’s producers—once in person and several times by phone—and gave them some advice on what kinds of material I would like to see included.] But I do want to ask what this series would look like if we also understand American religious history to be about coercion and authority? Most of God in A…
Read More
…Nations, a case for the U.S or Israel attacking Iran, and a pitch for the phone ministry 1-888-RAPTURE. Apparently the UFO issue got onto Lindsey’s radar screen because of reports that United Nations is paying attention to it, as discussed here. Lindsey offers a mass of evidence (quite disturbing if true) claiming sightings by military personnel who witnessed UFOs disarming nuclear weapons. In Lindsey’s interpretation, such disarmament fits a sim…
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
…s on Twitter and Facebook, I got lots of nice responses from friends, some last-minute advice, and then of course the requests to “pray for me.” I also had one of my pre-hajj talks with my shaykh, who also gave me a list of do, persons to pray for, and some important reminders about etiquette. So I think about the Joan Osborn song. What would you ask, if you had just one question? I’ve thought about it before. And I’ve thought about it a lot. Stil…
Read More…s a compromise, a letter to the Washingtonians… To the moderate political classes, religious leaders, and activists who are tempted after the Republican gains in the 2010 midterms to call for more compromise, civility, and government sensitivity to the plight of “the least of these”: Late in the year 2000, I stayed up late into the night watching election returns. The hope for a Gore presidency went down hard, like sparks struck from a flint. At 2…
Read More
…e likely to cheat on a mathematics exam. Others were less likely to let a classmate use their cell phone. “Some philosophical analyses may conclude that a fatalistic determinism is compatible with highly ethical behavior,” the psychologist Jesse Bering comments in an article on these studies, “but the present results suggest that many laypersons do not yet appreciate that possibility.” Theologians have proposed that science still allows faith in a…
Read More