Religion Dispatches
…e President stay centered and stay righteous absent a more sustained and in-person conversation. A pastor needs to enjoy the complete trust of the congregant, which means that the congregant needs to know that he/she can actually bare his/her soul—all the brokenness, all the doubts, all the anger, and (in Obama’s case) all the spiritual heartache that goes with shouldering impossible burdens. And there is no way President Obama can get to know and…
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…out a couple she had met recently who came across the border with their two-year-old child. They endured four hot days and four cold nights before being detained and sent back home. They will try again. To her, they are people of faith with a child. Our job, she proclaimed, is to “do all we can to care for this child who came to us from God.” Progressive bishops in denominations that have strong conservative wings have a nearly impossible job. Th…
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…ike to do what I want to do, I have no real chance of winning right now. I think it would be nice to have a transhumanist in the cabinet saying, “Hey, these are interesting things, let’s have a real pro-techno-optimist discussion on it and see if we can make the world a better place.” Also on The Cubit: Hitchbot Meets His Maker: What A Robot’s Murder Tells Us About Ourselves…
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…shooting. I spent a full hour, numb with terror, refreshing the news on my phone and waiting to be reassured that the violence had been contained. The (unarmed) door guards at the school’s drop-off line know my daughter’s tricks; how she likes to stall and take her sweet time. And I watch her dance away into the little building where she builds her dreams and plays with her friends every day. I can hold it together until I drive away, but then it…
Read More…culpability that may apply to the two Madoff boys is the same as the guilt-by-association of drug dealers’ girlfriends, Margolick suggests. That is, such women are guilty of receiving money they should have known was tainted. So too the Madoff boys. It seems a bit surreal, but there it is. That was the tone Kathryn Lofton captured so well in her piece, I think. How should one look at the old wedding photos now, from the perspective of utter colla…
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…, defining Ahmadis out of Islam. In 1984, the military junta under Gen. Zia-ul-Haq went a step further, signing an executive order, known as Ordinance XX, prohibiting Ahmadis even from taking part in common Muslim practices such as the call to prayer, using the greeting “As-salamu alaykum,” or reciting the shahada, the Islamic creed: “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.” Since then, Zia’s order has been ratified by every succ…
Read More…ng some interesting conversations by email and phone with Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Some people have emailed me to say “right on.” Others, like some of my relatives, are just hurt, scared, and wondering if they can trust anything about their local priest, diocese, or bishop. I’ve received invitations to come and join the Episcopal Church (are you listening, Father Balmer?) but I am not quite “there” yet. Yet there are others, who either f…
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…Instagram Live video last week that he’s taking inspiration from the public-crisis-driven early days of both movements. Azusa Street came on the heels of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and McPherson’s early ministry included barnstorming public healings during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Some experts, though, aren’t convinced by the comparison. “He seems like an opportunist,” said Diane Winston, a religion and media professor at the Univers…
Read More…well from his Baptist background. The mistake he is making, however, is two-fold: believing that he can lie his way through this, sacrificing his family on the altar of his hubris. Even Gingrich knows how to pull a repentant face when questioned about his past affairs. But Cain’s arrogance won’t wash with the many white voters who he believes “can’t pretend” to like him. Cain’s inability to acknowledge his foibles speaks to very deep pathology on…
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…night dancing with, someone who I had spoken to just a week before on the phone, her laughter weakened but still familiar. When I thought about her ashes being scattered around Boston I felt a momentary panic. Where could I ever go to find her again? Last week, just in time for the Feast of All Soul’s Day, celebrated each year on November 2, the Catholic Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released a new Instruction regarding the…
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