Religion Dispatches
…ide epidemic of rising medical costs, disparate levels of care and growing numbers of uninsured or underinsured Americans,” the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy recently reported. “You’re describing the perfect storm,” Neil Calman, CEO of the Bronx, New York-based Institute for Family Health, a speaker at the event, responded to an audience member’s comment: “People are going to find the situation will get increasingly worse and go…
Read More…oween Hell Houses are also known as “Judgement Houses.” At the Clearwater, Florida-based Judgement House Web site you can find everything you need to stage a truly frightening event, including an informational how-to video and 10 different scripts. Each scripts is “unique in its setting, characters and story and is a relevant interpretation of events happening around the world today. However all of our scripts ask the same important question, ‘Wha…
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…of the general trend toward non-affiliation; in fact, it’s the other way around: the unprecedented number of Catholics leaving the church is a major driver of the increase in “nones.” A recent Pew Poll, which provides one of the most detailed looks to date at this phenomenon, found that while 20 percent of US adults currently identify as Catholic, nine percent identify as ex-Catholic, with an additional six percent who were raised Catholic (or wh…
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…e session public was announced after Ordain Women requested and was denied tickets in September. Although some media outlets referred to the action as a protest, Kelly, an international human rights attorney from Washington, D.C., said it should be more accurately understood as a conversation. “There isn’t a clear way to reach the prophet or the leaders. We can’t simply call them up and ask them to pray about an issue that is of concern to us,” s…
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…e, and also not such a frustration to deal with the amorphous agent of the airline as a whole. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the customer service agent or the person at the desk, who sat there, right when the doors were closed and the flight took off, just as you arrived. It doesn’t really matter who exactly provides some justice. The institution probably just prefers to funnel it through one channel, namely customer service, because then they ca…
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…oommate over a period of months in 1970. Although I can’t find an official number, a casino employee tells us over 5,000 tickets have been sold; 5,000 pilgrims who’ve made the trek from around the country to pay their respects to Annabelle, and are willing to wait hours to do so. On the convention floor, an eclectic group of vendors hocks their wares, from Ouija boards and books about ghost hunting to bath bombs shaped like horror movie icons. The…
Read More…tened to boycott IKEA, after it provided Family Card holders with discount tickets to his Christian magic show, ‘Vision’. In a statement, the chain said it would not be cutting ties with the pastor. IKEA said: “Dear IKEA fans, thanks for your patience while we took time to come to an informed decision on an issue that has raised sensitivities in our community. “After listening to the questions raised, we decided to do a thorough review. We spoke d…
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…out Cardinal Rigali being back on the altar for the Pope’s visit. He wants Philadelphia to forget and move on. The real issue is what else lurks, not only in Philadelphia but worldwide, now that bishops will be held accountable? If Pope Francis and the commission he has appointed do their jobs, a third wave of scandals could be coming to the church that has the potential to eclipse the previous ones. If bishops are going to be held accountable for…
Read More…y loving families, just as I was and my friends were as we grew up here in Philadelphia. Their loss cut deeply at the hearts of family and friends. It left an aching void. This is what Philadelphia, Mississippi, has come to understand—that we are not talking about abstractions, but about human beings. It is that common bond of humanity that crosses racial, regional, cultural, and religious lines that makes our divisions seem so petty. (Read the wh…
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…y from Victorian sentimentalism. Such angels are on sale at reduced price; cheap wares for cheap faith. It would be an error, however, to fully dismiss pop culture angels. Despite the fact that representations of angels in film and television, comics and music, paperback novels and posters, are filtered through market concerns, such pop culture can still speak to human meaning—and because of that they merit our attention. Besides, the bulk of art…
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