Religion Dispatches
…plugged-in lifestyle doesn’t really get at the heart of the issue. I think the Amish, of all people, have it right. It’s not so much about what you as an individual are doing or not doing, as the effect technology has on the community: Why not make life easier and just put [a phone] in the house? “What would that lead to?” another Amish man asked me. “We don’t want to be the kind of people who will interrupt a conversation at home to answer a tel…
Read More…slogans about immigration reform. On line I heard that parishes with large numbers of undocumented immigrants had received many tickets. No outside food or water, statues, gifts or selfie sticks were permitted. Despite 10,000 folding chairs, most of us would have no choice but to stand. Once in my appointed place behind the last row of seats, I found myself in a community of fellow pilgrims, lottery winners from local parishes, nearby colleges, an…
Read More
…ualism is bad. Also, he notes but offers no explanation for the decreasing number of marriages in many countries. I am glad to see that in Section 34 he understands this basic fact of contemporary western culture: The ideal of marriage, marked by a commitment to exclusivity and stability, is swept aside whenever it proves inconvenient or tiresome. The fear of loneliness and the desire for stability and fidelity exist side by side with a growing fe…
Read More
…I shared what I learned with those standing around me or who didn’t have a phone, compared notes with others about what they knew, and tried to calm some who were scared and close to panic. As far as I could tell, the TSA personnel and other security officials seemed know about as much as the passengers about what was happening—all around me, I sensed a complete failure of nerve. A black woman wearing a security vest crouched outside on the tarmac…
Read More
…age. His 2012 book, The Buddha Walks into a Bar, has sold widely. Over the phone, I asked Rinzler why he and Burrows had chosen to establish the studio as a for-profit company. “We really wanted to make sure we had all the resources we need for supporting people who are trying meditation for the first time,” Rinzler explained. Because they’re a business, there’s more professionalism. The teachers they’ve hired show up on time, and, as Rinzler put…
Read More…seph Goebbels’ propaganda office—that the invasion was a crusade to defend Germany and all Europe against the Judeo-Bolshevik menace in the East, was widely popular, both in Germany and abroad—at least, as long as the Germans seemed to be winning the war. After World War II, as Communism spread across Eastern Europe, it carried the widespread fear that Jews were intent, not just on implementing Communism, but on taking revenge against their enemie…
Read More
…s in funding from the Orbán government, has nurtured connections both with Germany and the US. While the German CDU (Christian Democratic Union, Germany’s conservative party) has largely ended relations with the Fidesz Party, its foundation, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, has no such qualms. They’ve repeatedly hosted events with the MCC, with CDU-members like former professor Werner Patzelt speaking at an MCC event. The aforementioned Birgit Kelle…
Read More
…efer to a number of entities, the most common association today being Nazi Germany, which referred to itself as the “Third Reich”—following the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and Imperial Germany. The video’s reference to the Reich, as the Associated Press has reported, seems to have been taken verbatim from a Wikipedia entry on World War I: German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the cre…
Read More…City tag.” He notes that anti-gay religious activists, while not large in number, are relatively vocal: Choi Chi-sum, general secretary of the conservative Christian group, the Society For Truth And Light, for example, has been given an increasingly prominent stage to present his views following Taiwan’s legislative change. His opinions on same-sex marriage, sexual minority anti-discrimination laws, and even the recent “controversy” over a homose…
Read More
…as a turning point for the gay rights movement. It has been celebrated in Germany since 1979. Richard Grenell, an openly gay foreign affairs commentator, is reportedly going to be nominated by U.S. President Donald Trump to be ambassador to Germany. During Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, the candidate named Grenell to serve as his spokesperson on foreign policy and national securities, but resigned from the campaign after an aggressive…
Read More