Religion Dispatches
…and they said, “It might.” One of those whom I asked was the late Dr. Nasr aAbu-Zayd, who also offered this consolation: “People have a short memory, it will blow over.” I had no idea if five years was long enough for it to “blow over” when I applied for visa to make hajj this year. I also had no idea if the people who work in the embassy connect every detail of your life with your passport and visa requests. I know when I come into the United Sta…
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…ed, you may be relieved to know. Perhaps you would agree that in the final analysis, such things are of no concern. No, Mr. Smisek, this message is not the grievance of a disgruntled customer. It is a witness to an abomination. It is a plea for spiritual recompense. In the video message that was played before my last United Airlines flight, you expressed your desire to greet each and every passenger; you invited us to sit back, relax, and enjoy th…
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…nter-terrorism programming. If terrorism is geopolitical, it’s because it damages psyches as much as bodies. In emphasizing the geopolitical aspect of its “War on Terror,” has the West missed the fact that it has been colonized by a psychic terrorism—one inspired as much by the hypervigilant paranoia of homeland security and law enforcement as by any actual terrorist activity? This is the hypothesis I have grappled with after my experience earlier…
Read More…ce” of gambling. But it wasn’t a joke, it was a Newt Gingrich campaign appearance at a Presidential Forum, hosted by the conservative Christian legal group Liberty Counsel and others, at Aloma Baptist Church in Winter Park, Florida, just north of Orlando. Gingrich was running late, so the event co-sponsors filled time with over-the-top God-and-country songs, prayer, and speeches about the causes their organizations promote. Liberty Counsel, the Ch…
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…ivil rights activists. He helped Martin Luther King, Jr. make the argument against Vietnam, drafting King’s “Beyond Vietnam”speech in 1967, broadening the concern of the movement and alienating some moderate civil rights supporters. Author of numerous works on American-American religious history, including There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America and Martin Luther King: An Inconvenient Hero, Harding taught at Illiff School of Th…
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…ind priests willing to perform marriage rites in Tampere, Helsinki and Vantaa, at least. But in Kotka, southeast Finland, the local diocese has issued a ruling banning even prayers on church premises for same-sex couples who have exchanged wedding vows. The ban extends to prayer sessions held by priests for gay couples who have tied the knot in civil ceremonies. Kotka clerics also decided to discontinue the practice of reading wedding announcement…
Read More…sexual abuse—one which reaches all the way to Pope Francis himself—the media and public were sucked right into the conspiracy. Vigano’s letter opened the doors to the inner workings of the Vatican political and culture war—one culminating with accusations of liberal vs. conservative, gay vs. straight priests, and the power struggles between Popes Francis, Pope Emeritus Benedict, and the Roman Curia. The problem? None of this has to do with the cau…
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…icy to redefine “sex,” another memo sits on the desk of HHS Secretary Alex Azar, one that would allow South Carolina child welfare agency Miracle Hill Ministries to affirmatively discriminate on the basis of religion while receiving state and federal child welfare funds. While it appears that Miracle Hill has been exclusively serving Protestant families for decades, the agency came under the scrutiny of the South Carolina Department of Social Serv…
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…n a job interview, that you won’t minister to same-sex couples, says Timo Laato, Lecturer at Lutheran School of Theology, Gothenburg, Sweden. The Church of Norway has officially two views on marriage, and gender is seen as irrelevant to a marriage. A pastor should not question the two views. According to a bishop, there is no room for those in the Church, who call the Church’s new doctrine as schismatic, says Rolf Kjøde, Director of Continuing Edu…
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…on a San Francisco beach in 1986 and was moved to an obscure corner of Nevada called the Black Rock Desert in 1990, where it eventually grew into an internationally renowned event that draws close to 50,000 participants annually. For one week in late August and early September, an elaborate civic infrastructure called “Black Rock City” is constructed, featuring a carefully laid out grid of streets in which participants set up hundreds of differe…
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