Religion Dispatches
…hat Jon Huntsman, Jr., former Utah governor, Obama-appointed Ambassador to China, and rumored 2012 presidential candidate has a secret liability that would put him out of the running right quick. It’s definitely something from his past, but I’m gathering that it’s not so salacious. Employing an undocumented worker, perhaps? The fact that he dropped out of high school to join a rock band? His unseemly affection for progressive rock? Is it that he o…
Read More…o Obama’s support of Indonesia, as he attempts to set-up rival powers with China; Indonesia’s close relationship with Australia makes them a credible power center. Just as important, Obama recognizes that democracy is messy, painful, and not the same everywhere. Indonesia carved out its own understanding of democracy that recognizes its cultural past and desires for the future. There is a challenge of accepting the “modern” on one’s own terms, and…
Read More…leader” will then be confronted by a false prophet, identified by Hagee as China, at Armageddon, the Mount of Megiddo in Israel. As they prepare for the final battle, Jesus will return on a white horse and cast both villains—and presumably any nonbelievers—into a “lake of fire burning with brimstone,” thus marking the beginning of his millennial reign. Of course Obama wasn’t motivated by Ezekiel’s war, but by political and national security calcul…
Read More…, the Obamas went to church. President Obama also met with the Dalai Lama. China did not like it. You probably bought your Bible from Rupert Murdoch. According to a new survey, reading the Bible will make you more concerned about poverty, the environment, and civil liberties. Though some find the hubbub surrounding the new Harry Potter flick diabolical, at least one theologian is asking the tough questions about Hogwarts. What Hogwarts house would…
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…ddle classes while empowering their counterparts in places like Turkey and China. The same process is at work; if even it produces different results. The same truth holds for radical violence, whether Muslim or Christian. Terrorism preys on the weaknesses of the global system. But more than that, terrorism—in its current form—is inseparable from globalization. Just as transnational connections enable ever faster movement of goods and services, so…
Read More…officials are conflicted over how to deal with the rise of Christianity in China. Investigators found billions of dollars worth of treasure in the vaults beneath a southern Indian temple. The Vatican is opening up its Secret Archives to reveal 100 previously unseen documents to the public. The documents cover the period of Pope Pius XII’s World War II papacy and the trial of Galileo. Speaking of Pius XII, a woman has claimed he miraculously cured …
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…y, organized labor continued its tailspin in the face of budget cuts. From China to Spain, people around the world trying to replicate what they saw in Egypt. In the coming months, ambitious environmentalist, anti-corporate, and anti-war actions are being planned in the United States. People are frustrated, and they’re inspired. But Stout, a professor of religion at Princeton, insists on asking another question: How will they organize? Why are the…
Read More…onal Geographic Channel has an upcoming documentary on child preachers. In China, a Tibetan monk immolated himself in protest. He was heard calling out for Tibetan independence and the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet. He was the second monk to self-immolate in protest in the past five months. The event spurred a lockdown of the monastery where the monk’s body was taken. The Daily Beast reports that the FLDS is secretly building a 38-foot-tall st…
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…also provides a dense but informative chapter on the Taiping Rebellion of China, a mid-nineteenth century, quasi-Christian movement that left some twenty million corpses in its wake. Heaven on Earth is less illuminating of more recent movements. For Landes, UFO cults and movies about UFOs are interchangeable expressions of millennialism. I suggested earlier that we need to pay attention to the influence of apocalyptic fantasies on popular culture…
Read More…th the very opposite of what is intended. For example, Dolan describes how China and North Korea supposedly “‘redefine’ rights, relationships, value, and natural law” on a regular basis via “communiqués from the government,” versus how we exalted Westerners handle the issues. In doing so, he describes exactly how the Vatican operates. Another reversal is his take on certain rights “like that of a child to be raised in a family with a mom and a dad…
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