Religion Dispatches
…John 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, Australi…
Read More…levant fringe movement, as many others seem to think, since he’s paid money to email them and apparently expects that it will be worthwhile….
Read More…20 years ago, I knew this 18-year-old Mormon kid. Real good kid. He said [fill in the blank], so [fill in the blank] must be doctrine, and Mitt Romney must believe [fill in the blank] too. And because of [fill in the blank], we should be worried about a Romney presidency. Try it out with any other religion or ethnic group, and see how that sounds. Garry Wills and his readers at the NYRB may indeed have plenty to worry about from a Romney presidenc…
Read More
…lationships across religious difference. For the past several years, my family has had the privilege of hosting Muslim students from the Middle East who are in the U.S. to learn English. Many of these students are quite conservative and come from countries with severe restrictions on religious pluralism. Despite this, our students have been remarkably open to new ways of seeing the world. They have attended worship services at our local Mennonite…
Read More
…homosexualists and sodomists from his archdiocese speaks for itself.” Be Still and Know is the brainchild of John Loschmann, the director of Drama at Sacred Heart Preparatory School in Atherton, a Bay Area suburb near Palo Alto. Loschmann adapted the play from Alex Sanchez’s young-adult novel The God Box. “The thing that really has affected me a great deal,” Loschmann told Religion Dispatches, “was watching the cast members deal with the hateful b…
Read More
…r of a crime against another human being must seek forgiveness from the family and others if not the victim directly. What happened in South Africa was that the family would have the choice to forgive. By forgiving, they raise the perpetrator back up to a level of humanity lost by the act perpetuated. If the family or victim continued to hold a grudge, what actually happens, in a manner of speaking, is they are then brought down to the level of th…
Read More
…connection, once burning with possibility and joy, began to cool, as cell phone calls dwindled and numbers eventually changed or were disconnected. As our shared realities drifted apart in their likeness, like Pigpen, I also turned to technologies that promised connection to try to tamp down the yearning and temper that sense of loss. #5 : Three Ways to American Beauty by Aaron K. Kerr At the height of secular modernity, when Catholics were openi…
Read More
…461 compared to 1,721—and it has been conducted over almost two decades, while Baylor’s first numbers come from 2006. Because researchers will inevitably craft their survey according to their own interests and assumptions, the ARIS doesn’t give respondents a list of religious identities to choose from. Instead it asks, simply, “What is your religion, if any?” and categorizes the results after the fact. “What we get is true, democratic vox populi,”…
Read More
…isingly, Sir Thomas Mores among royal favorites are few and far between. Still rarer are still feistier prophets like the Bible’s Nathan, willing to front the king in his chamber and shout “You are the man!” in the face of royal criminality. I understand that Obama craves and needs spiritual counsel. But in my judgment, it is the high-placed pastors who are willing to have our newspaper of record identify them as the ones providing such counsel wh…
Read More
…icials who might find it easier, for example, to stand publicly for gay civil rights than to bring about similar justice within their own denominations. In this case, there is every indication that Bishop Carcaño remains a committed ally of LGBTIQ people both Methodist and otherwise. She will have many more opportunities to demonstrate her support. Managing Finances, Not the Needy The economic recession is another factor in contemporary churc…
Read More