Religion Dispatches
…idea what was happening to me. It would’ve been nice to have known that my spiritual anguish didn’t mean I was rejecting faith, or being rejected by the object of my faith. Such anguish might be a purging; God nudging us to reject something in ourselves, an error in our acts or our aspirations. But I was never taught Islam as a journey, even though I came from a religious family. I grew up in an environment where religion and religious ideas frequ…
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…ester NY, who lost his daughter Jean, a flight attendant on board American Airlines Flight 11. Mr. Roger said he hoped the pope would say prayers for the place, for the people, and for his daughter Jean. Praying at a unlighted candle next to the prie-dieu Pope Benedict XVI used on his visit, the Pope offered those prayers silently while looking at the south pool of the memorial. The 9/11 site has become not just a memorial or a museum—it is a pilg…
Read More…help find the missing airliner by using the power of remote viewing, a form of ESP….
Read More…at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and attempted to locate Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 using a magical ritual that combined Islamic elements with shamanic practices. On Thursday Ibrahim Mat Zin, also known as Rajah Bomoh Sedunia Nujum, delivered a press conference (in which he demonstrated a squint that bore an uncanny resemblance to Pat Robertson.) He initially stated that he had been invited to perform his ritual by one of Malaysia’s “…
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…Pride Walk. Colombia: Profile of trans musician and activist explores her spiritual life Sentiido profiles Sarah Gonzalez, a musician and transgender activist whose “spiritual life is linked to a deep respect for nature, an idea enriched by Buddhist and shamanic practices.” Sarah says that struggling with her identity, she prayed to the Virgin Mary to be “fixed,” before understanding that Catholic doctrine was standing in the way of an authentic…
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…(first as Uttaranchal) in 2000, the region has seen a massive rise in the number of visitors to the region, especially by the growing Indian middle class. Roads widened and hotels and visitor services grew exponentially. Building a new hotel or a restaurant by the side of the road felt like a smart investment—even when the road was near a river. Kedarnath saw the building of new cell phone towers, a railway reservation office, helicopter landing…
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…by Pentecostal students at Sharon Children’s Homes and Schools in February, 1948. Weary of what they felt was a “spiritual drought” in institutional Pentecostalism, they were in search of fresh spiritual experience. This is a driving aspect of NAR to this day. This anti-denominationalism led to accusations that the movement was taking members and churches out of institutional Pentecostalism. This was certainly a factor when the General Council of…
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…n Church in Charleston was burned to the ground by whites following a major 1822 slave uprising when it was discovered that long-time church member and class leader (and free person of color) Denmark Vesey had been preaching insurrection there. And now, in a distinctively American drama that never ends, the historic and brave Emanuel (“God with us”) African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston has been violated yet again, almost 200 years late…
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…m terrible at thinking of titles and was rather pleased with Moving by the Spirit. Having to come up with something else is hard! In any case, the idea of “moving,” and the Pentecostal version of this, which is what I mean by “moving by the Spirit,” serves as an organizing motif for the book. So, the current title gives you a reasonable idea of what it’s about. How do you feel about the cover? I love it! So many books about Pentecostalism have cov…
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…ine had come to a full stop, even though that was the line for people with reservations. (Reservations? Who knew?) We had gone for the show, not the protest. Being the kind of people who can neither climb poles or stand in long lines, or wait to get busted by the French riot police (they don’t seem to have read Thoreau on civil disobedience) we went across the street to the Petit Palais, where we enjoyed a wonderfully quirky permanent collection (…
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