Religion Dispatches
…as Yugoslav, and most recently almost destroyed. And today? As I board the flight to Sarajevo, I’m not sure if I should expect a post-Soviet wasteland, an eerily quiet former war zone, or something else. The flight, though, is reassuringly undistinguished. There are lots of Bosnians, white and Western enough to pass for everyday Americans, though the occasional hijabs might throw you off. There are a few Americans, who seem to be intrepid backpack…
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…this pope. Just how much dancing is required became apparent after the in-flight chat with journalists and Francis’ now-famous statement: “if a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has goodwill, well who am I to judge them?” When it comes to making trouble in the dioceses, Francis is practicing what he preaches. Many bishops in this country went into containment mode, issuing statements to their local churches about what the pope had said and es…
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…ded social resource scarcity for those most in need. What this large-scale flight of social resources left in its wake was not an urban demographic characterized by upward mobility but by severe poverty and social isolation. Between 1970 and 1990, the percentage of persons living in neighborhoods with a poverty rate of 40 percent or higher grew from 7.8 to 15.8 percent for blacks and from 7.0 to 9.5 percent for Hispanics, and by 2010 the proportio…
Read More…hen put it and make the intentions. That means you have to know where your flight is going. As it happens my flight will enter Saudi Arabia from a non-Muslim majority country, France, so will land in Jeddah, the transitional port. However, since my next stop is Makkah, and Jeddah is closer to it than any of the five miqat, then technically I have to make my intention and take on the ihram before I leave the U.S. (or in France, or mid-air). Everybo…
Read More…cation of his religious worldview served to insulate him from conservative flight. Bump writes that Robertson’s “comments about black Americans were buried under a rush to defend the right of Christian Americans to express disapproval of gays,” and that, compared to Bundy Robertson “did a much better job leveraging political sentiment in his favor after his controversial remarks.” But Robertson didn’t have to do much leveraging; his comments came…
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…the person killed, with color-coded ribbons differentiating civilians and flight crews from first responders. Orlando, Florida, on the logic that far more were injured in both visible and “invisible” ways, has opted to erect 250,000 flags. It is not death that is primary here, in any case. The flag’s sacrality, to use an oft-invoked religious term for the societal roles this emblem plays, is linked to its resistance of a single straight meaning….
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…rows back, I studied Cardinal Francis George’s reaction when our Alitalia flight bound for Pope John Paul II’s funeral in Rome hit the kind of turbulence that makes most travelers grip the armrest and offer involuntary prayers. Cardinal George held a copy of a broadsheet Italian newspaper in his hands, arms bent at a 45-degree angle as he casually read coverage of preparations for the conclave to elect John Paul II’s successor, in which he would…
Read More…artners in Israel,” notes the Times. “Civil marriage does not exist in the country, where the solemnization of marriage is entirely controlled by the state rabbinate, and homosexual unions are not in themselves recognized.” Vietnam: Couple marries on airplane flight A Vietnamese lesbian couple celebrated a Valentine’s Day wedding on a Vietjet flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok. Pink News notes, “Same-sex marriage is not legally recognized in…
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…ared up he would walk through the badly hit neighborhoods to prevent white flight and counsel the victims of the attacks. His hands-on approach to fighting racism is reminiscent of a barefoot Gandhi taking up residence in an East Bengali village after fighting between Hindus and Muslims threatened to destroy the region. Of the many new religious movements of the 1960s and ’70s, Peoples Temple is probably the only one that can boast an agenda that…
Read More…al nail in the coffin of American liberty. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a Flight 93 election. This may be our last shot. It’s time to roll. It’s time to run down the aisle and save western civilization . . . This country is the equivalent of that hijacked plane right now. We’re headed to a disaster, unless we can get control of the cockpit again. Trump made clear what it meant to save Western Civilization. In a nutshell, it is to resurrect and de…
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