Religion Dispatches
…some polls the combined total equals or even outscores the economy as the number one issue on the voters’ minds. Two out of the three campaigns are actively pushing the war back onto center stage. Hillary Clinton recently said: “Since we now know Sen. McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party, national security will be front and center in this election. We all know that.” Well, we may not all know it yet. Apparently Obama and his people…
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…in the “real” physical environment of the player, as mediated through the phone’s camera. As one player told a reporter: “This is full on escapism, where I’m like ‘let me just go catch some Pokémon and ignore the news.’” What news is she talking about? The murders of Sterling and Castile and the Dallas police officers. She is referring to the news of death. But in a matter of days Pokemon Go has changed our relationship with death. This is new te…
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…ave to contest Republicans in suburban and rural districts. Running up the numbers in the cities just won’t cut it. So there’s problem one: the AHCA is very much a “Republican versus Democrat issue.” It wouldn’t exist without the extreme partisan divisions that exist today in the US, which are regional as much as numerical. Maybe I’m wrong, and this strategy call has some kind of secret weapon to overcome those divisions. Prayer and appeals to com…
Read More…not-religion so very clearly and abruptly. We didn’t have to change in the phone booth, as it were, into the non-religious as we transitioned abruptly from ritual to rat race. It was not so very problematic for one to bleed over into the other. And during Ramadan, we grew up to expect lighter workloads. Migrant workers in certain Gulf countries learned to expect total lack of productivity and sometimes a complete absence of office workers during R…
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…be canvassing the state, in preparation for “a full-scale get-out-the-vote phone bank operation to make sure every last pro-freedom and pro-family voter goes to vote on behalf of our values.” So far, the right’s anti-union battleground in Wisconsin hasn’t been explicitly framed as a “pro-family” issue, but here’s Marx: Please join Tony Nasvik and join the fight with 100 plus FFC activists who will be going door-to-door encouraging the Badger State…
Read More…at cross purposes. My first thought was to kick myself for leaving my cell phone behind. This would have made a terrific picture. My second thought was to find a less obtrusive spot where I could watch to see how this excruciatingly slow drama would play out. But before I could move, my husband drifted up behind me in his kayak, took one look at the frog and snake and muttered, “I can’t take this.” Over my objections (“But it’s nature!”) Jeff stre…
Read More…Jewish heritage of my wife of 38 years,” he wrote in an email. Later in a phone interview, he said his wife was not a practicing Jew but “ethnically Jewish” because her maternal grandmother was a Jew. Of course, it is possible to express [insert flavor of bigotry here] even if you have friends, relatives, partners, or a spouse who identify as part of [group that is the target of that bigotry]. It’s a close cousin to the “some of my best friends a…
Read More…s right in front of us, difference is on our iPads, in our laptops, in our phones. We hold a whole world of difference every time we open a phone. And the response to in the world around is at best insult, and so often violence, a reality which is the living experience of many you here. Welby also addressed a January gathering of Primates, which voted to suspend the Episcopal Church from questions on doctrine or policy for three years because of i…
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…was offended and let the email sender know. It led to a rich and powerful phone conversation later that day where we both came to an agreement that, if followed logically, the examples tell a story of a God who is either capricious or lacking in any real power. If God can put small delays in the path of a few people headed for the Twin Towers that day, why not do that to all of them? If God has the power to save some, why not save all? Why not pe…
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