Religion Dispatches
…of the collider lit up with a spirograph of pastel whenever particles made contact. The result resembled a flower; perhaps the dieffenbachia watching plant porn on the other side of the room might have liked this, had they been able to choose. Keats’ hope is that by bringing together the most traditional of prayer spaces—the altar—with the most modern of experimental physics—the LHC—God will take notice. There was at least some response from the f…
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…e. We need source material drawn from our cultural world that reflects our contact with the world. BRAXTON: A “grammar of compassion”—that’s a beautiful phrase. The world surely needs more compassion. I won’t begrudge people about whether their motivation for compassionate problem-solving arises from religious or secular sources. We just need to address these public problems. When teaching in divinity schools and seminaries, I remind students that…
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…e number is certainly down from its height as many have stayed and cut off contact with their families. They recently took a road trip to Arizona to attend Trump’s rally, which garnered national attention with Protzman’s claim that Trump was really JFK Jr. in disguise. Protzman’s followers claimed that their seats meant Protzman had contacts with Trump, which renewed interest in the group from their casual online followers, despite any proof of th…
Read More…was allowed to continue priestly duties throughout the diocese, including contact with children, even though hundreds of photographs of children were discovered by the Bishop on Ratigan’s laptop. The pictures including upskirt pictures of girls and pictures of a young girl naked from the waist down. While Kansas City priests tiptoed around the news in masses on Sunday, there is no doubt that the indictment is another warning shot aimed at the enc…
Read More…vels at work and social isolation. Priests who reported engaging in sexual contact with adults of the same sex were not more likely to have abused children. (The report also attempts to discount abuse of children aged 11-14 as pedophilia, claiming instead that it technically qualifies as “ephebophilia”—the abuse of pubescent children—and thus it is inaccurate to characterize abusers as “pedophile priests.”) Not surprisingly, the report was met imm…
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…
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…ence from intercourse before marriage, but also abstinence in any physical contact, actions and thoughts which might lead to sexual arousal. The irony had not been lost on me. Yet, here I was sinking deeper and deeper into this pit of depression. I had nowhere to go, no one to talk to. After all, I was given one job by the person I had sought help from (Larry,) and that was to keep my mouth shut. Eventually, in a fit of tears, Woodson broke down d…
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…of the conscious mind. On the contrary, for Jung such experiences involve contact with an awareness which is more than merely personal. He reportedly had premonitions and received messages during these states. Lucid visionary states have been sought by a wide variety of cultures, not just for the sense of euphoria, freedom, and radiant aliveness they convey, but because they were believed capable of transforming and uplifting the individual to a…
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…u? Do you? We do. We need to see it, to watch the bowling pin make cranial contact, to see the rape, dimly, to track the seepage of another’s blood. We need it, too, as we sit in our swivel chairs, shuttling our computer mouse over the Web site crawl, onto our next tale of true crime dullness. We must want to imagine Nixzmary as she died, or to picture a face marred by a brother’s bullet. All of this is our striving effort to do anything, anything…
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…tersects the Church’s medieval sacramental structure. In 2011, a new smartphone app aimed to support preparation for and the practice of confession ended up generating more confusion than contrition when a not particularly social design invited people to conclude that absolution was granted by way of the Confession app itself rather than, according to Catholic teaching, through the mediation of the priest. No wonder Pope Benedict XVI’s Message fo…
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