Religion Dispatches
…rspective. In the States, unless a Christian radio station is involved, lucky radio callers generally land tickets to a concert, sporting event, or perhaps a trip to be “pampered” at one of the popular vacation destinations (Cancun, Disneyland, Las Vegas, etc). Speaking of Christian radio, over the years I have logged in many an hour listening like some wartime code breaker to folks like James Dobson, Chuck Colson, etc. For years, I was a near fan…
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…een working feverishly to finish their projects but had put off purchasing tickets were left out in the cold. It was a different scene in 1997 when I first came to Burning Man and only waited briefly at the entrance as a “Greeter” cast a cursory glance at my car. But the Greeters’ enthusiastic reception remained the same. These Greeters, a dusty naked couple, asked me to get out of my car and embraced me, shouting “Welcome Home!” I had crossed the…
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…ans would be attracted to, appreciate and consider careers in science (the number is decreasing annually). I bet we’d have more productive conversation among students and leaders of science and religion around the many profound issues in our nation that engage both: abortion, medical care, stem cells, homosexuality, and genomic research. The battle rhetoric would fade and, more than likely, movies like Expelled wouldn’t be made in the first place….
Read More…ughter Bella was hospitalized.) Organizers said they had distributed 1,800 tickets, and the pews in the church were nearly full, with several hundred, if not nearly a thousand people in attendance. Gingrich was the only candidate to appear; Staver, the “forum’s” moderator took pains to point out that they had invited the other candidates. Santorum and Ron Paul had commitments outside of Florida. Mitt Romney, the candidate Staver and other leaders…
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…umber of marriages within the church has declined by nearly half. Only the number of Catholic funerals has held steady. And while the number of Catholics overall has remained level, that’s largely due to Hispanic migration to the US; some 40 percent of those born Catholic have left the church. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. The church Francis will encounter is fundamentally different in character from the church of John Paul in two import…
Read More…ccurred to me it would be a very easy to make hajj from there. I bought an airline ticket and was in contact with the family of one of my graduate school friends. They would pick me up from the airport and host me during my stay and the days of ritual. Nice plan. So I went to the embassy to get the visa and was denied because (as an American) I needed proof that I was Muslim. How do I prove I have been a practicing Muslim for a decade? I went to t…
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…alse—swept through the terminals, sending passengers, law-enforcement, and airline workers scrambling for cover and eventually onto the tarmac. The responding authorities found neither shooters nor evidence of any shots fired. The most likely explanation offered for the panic was that the cheering of Olympics fans for Usain Bolt’s performance in the 100 meters sounded like gunfire. In an episode titled “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street,” from…
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…ual 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 the flight. If I could greet you now, I would want to know: were you unaware of the monstrosity that was about to follow? There, rising above the hiss of the pressurized air, as the video monitors snapped to the image of an engorged sun bursting from be…
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…others were waging “guerrilla warfare…keeping authorities on the move like Lexington and Concord.” DeMuth put the blame for the recent catastrophic defeat of the British Tories, who suffered the worst loss in their party history last week, on those conservative “elites” who “don’t collaborate with populist party crashers” which will relegate the Tories to “the dust bin.” ‘We are the conservative movement’ DeMuth summarized the aims of national con…
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…role as Mary Todd Lincoln, even down to the precise ways someone from the Lexington, Kentucky area in her era would have spoken; to the personally imperious but indispensably Machiavellian personality and role of William Henry Seward; to the gloriously ill-tempered Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Thaddeus Stevens, played with relish by Tommy Lee Jones. Then there are the minor characters, including the trio of rascals, fools, and…
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