Religion Dispatches
…spiritual practices play an increasingly important role in the lives of American seekers and believers, and ministers seeking relevance are wise to link traditional religious practices to the activities of daily life. But where blessing mobile phones, family pets, bicycles, and so on gets it wrong is in failing to invite the spiritual experience and creativity of believers back into the formal faith setting. Believers in the Digital Reformation ar…
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…d ran a 50-state, all-173-presbytery campaign.” This included church-based phone banks; ads in national Presbyterian magazines; and letter-writing and story-telling campaigns using traditional mail as well as social media [YouTube, Facebook, Twitter]. “We [also] found church leaders who had changed their mind about homosexuality—what they had been taught about the Bible—and shared their stories in these national ads and through social media,” Adee…
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…ving into Clinton’s religious history, we studied her relationships with a number of spiritual mentors, including Tikkun’s Michael Lerner, who was soon replaced by “sacred psychologist” Jean Houston, who famously helped the First Lady get in touch with the ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt. Later, after Mother Teresa died, Clinton invoked the spirit of the nun as her guiding light so religiously that one might be excused for wondering whether she meant i…
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…e Ukrainian civil war to punish Russia for opposing the “core value” of America, the priority of his State Department? Or (more importantly to the “gays”) to prevent the Russians from leading a pro-family counter-revolution in the world? Lively also warned this week that if the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of marriage equality, as many expect, this June, it will trigger “some larger act of God’s punishment on the entire world,” including the…
Read More…m as a “pervasive and aggressive movement” fueled by such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way and others. These groups are attempting to “remove references to God and Jesus Christ” from American life. One particular concern for the Southern Baptist messengers is Christmas. The resolution “encourages believers to be aware of businesses, schools, and all other public institutions in their areas that are removing…
Read More…between religion and neuroscience, but also, more specifically, between American religious history and American neuroscience. By way of proposition and broad outline, I want to suggest three conversational pivots for that kind of discussion: 1) The first is the historical interchange between religion and technology. It is useful, I think, to step aside for a moment from the religion-science nexus and to foreground the religion-technology relations…
Read More…bsite from which he claimed to get his information. He pulled out his cell phone: “Freddie!” he said to an unseen interlocutor. “Will you find me what that website for the saucer, the prophecy, for tomorrow night – the 14th?” He paused, then yelled: “THE SAUCER! All I want is access to the information so I can give it to someone else.” He then recited the web address of a YouTube video. It was my own searches, however, that turned up Goodchild’s w…
Read More…n Paul II, Pope Benedict sent the following text message to Italian mobile phone users: “Let us go forth in the joy of the risen Lord and trusting in his permanent help.” JPII had been texting Italians with a “thought of the day” while he was still alive, so Benedict was simply carrying on this tradition. Pope Benedict has more recently used text messaging to communicate with attendees throughout this year’s World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia. H…
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…s of divine intervention. It is no secret that Americans, and especially African Americans, have consistently described Obama’s candidacy as not only a significant historical moment, but also a long-hoped-for change. But these reactions also communicated other sentiments—anxiety, skepticism, and cynicism. These feelings are not exclusively held by disappointed McCain/Palin supporters, but also by African Americans who have heard and continue to he…
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…the poor—a discourse which is best embodied by the radical tradition of African-American religion. Wallis’ inability to claim the radical politics of the prophetic tradition serves to undermine the stated mission of his working, thereby limiting his capacity to articulate the development of an authentic Religious Left. Indeed, Wallis publicly argues against the organization of a Religious Left, arguing instead for a “moral center.” Wallis, Sekou…
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