Religion Dispatches
…vies shape how people, especially children, view the world. In the case of New Orleans and the myriad of cultures it holds, to stint on all of the facets that make New Orleans and Louisiana the wonderful, complex, and sometimes exasperating place that it is is a crime. Disney’s princesses, once again, may have big beautiful eyes, but while kids are enjoying the view, Disney’s hack job of deconstructing history by making it “cute” is just as destru…
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…wer format, as if he was of sufficient importance to be interviewed by the news media, Tarrant’s manifesto winds through a rambling set of comments and memes expressing Islamophobia, hatred of immigrants, and a strident right-wing nationalism. Impervious to irony, the Australian Tarrant—himself a foreigner in New Zealand—demands that outsiders be forcibly removed. He shows admiration for the nationalist stance of President Trump and, like Breivik,…
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…re doing extensively, in nationwide church appearances and through Gayle’s promotion of her new book. Why I Stayed: The Choices I Made In My Darkest Hour (Tyndale House, 2010) chronicles her and her family’s years in exile and urges women to follow her in choosing a path of forgiveness and love towards their flawed husbands. Why I Stayed paints a compelling picture of an eternal evangelical women’s leader continuing to demonstrate the path of virt…
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…ive centuries ago, we face similar epistemic collapse, endemic skepticism, new and more noxious nationalisms. Our new frightening politics motivated by similar fears and irrationalities, the ever-present specter of climate change and environmental collapse, the terrifying possibilities and hope of technology—all serve to turn our world upside down as the Strasbourgeois world had been. Where then is our Carnival? Or will we, like the dancers of Str…
Read More…cause it is evolving and changing by the moment. This is the moment that new civil society organizations, including new universities and think tanks, sprouting up across the Gulf will prove their worth and all those young Gulf-citizens will truly earn their PhDs. 4. Muslims are tired of how politics has been defined by and in the West. Perhaps the time has come to redefine what politics means? Realpolitik, the Kissingerian-Nixonian view of i…
Read More…learn from history, since all the big spending associated with Roosevelt’s New Deal “did nothing” for the economy. Unemployment, he suggests, was still at 15% in 1940. No, what got us out of “the doldrums” (his word) was the War. This one is a puzzler. First, what would unemployment rates have been without the New Deal and Roosevelt’s elaborate system of public works projects? Second, we’ve already got two wars on our hands, and they aren’t helpin…
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…The Burst: the outline surrounding the star is meant to reflect a nova—or new star—which represents a new beginning for all. While it’s become popular to fly the Pan-African flag (Red, Black, and Green) or even a hybrid of the Pan-African flag and U.S. flag (an U.S. flag in the colors red, black and green) on Juneteenth, neither speaks to the holiday itself. These flags, mainly available online, are simple commercial ventures that devalue rather…
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…rs until, as I read it, public pressure was simply too great. Kudos to the New York Times and other media outlets that will not let this case fade away. I doubt sincerely that the clergy fellows will cut him loose for prosecution in other locations. They have already hedged their bets by saying that it is not clear that the new 2013 Vatican guidelines can be applied retroactively in this case. Problems of double jeopardy remain of course. In short…
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…pastor known for his commitment to racial reconciliation, to serve as its new president. Litton beat out his opponent, far-right Georgia pastor Mike Stone, by fewer than 600 of over 13,000 votes in a runoff election that many believed would be a turning point for a denomination looking to clarify its role in a deeply polarized nation. The SBC also has its own internal polarization to contend with, with leaders inside the denomination disagreeing…
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…hments to its own images. In his 2002 book, Iconoclash, Latour writes: We knew (I knew!) we had never been modern, but now we are even less so: fragile, frail, threatened; that is, back to normal, back to the anxious and careful stage in which the “others” used to live before being “liberated” from their “absurd beliefs” by our courageous and ambitious modernization. Suddenly, we seem to cling with a new intensity to our idols, to our fetishes, to…
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