Religion Dispatches
…ice people. And our god is that God: the one who makes water flow from the rock (Numbers 20:11); who surprises us all the time by blessing us in the least likely circumstances. Mr. President: You need to understand this. You need to work with this, but very, very carefully. Because, like it or not, the endgame in this election is going to be about which candidate does religion better, I fervently wish that Mr. Obama would say a bit more about the …
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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…
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…n North Carolina. Referring to Bakker’s theological “feel-good stance” as “cheap grace,” Rev. Mark Creech of the Christian Action League attributed Bakker’s preaching of a “toxic and counterfeit gay-affirming gospel” to being injured by the church as a child. “In some ways he’s right,” Bakker told me in response. “It’s called empathy.” He continued: “Every time someone accuses me of cheap grace, I go back and say no, it’s free grace. Grace is free…
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…is trying to get more Muslims writing for TV and movies in Hollywood. The number of US Muslims accused of terrorism dropped by half in 2010, a new study reports. A pair of doves just didn’t want to leave the Pope’s window this week. People who believe the end of the world will come on 12/21/12 are flocking to a French mountain. A Norwegian boy fended off a pack of wolves by terrorizing them with a song by the slightly Christian band Creed. German…
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…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…
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…ven when the road was near a river. Kedarnath saw the building of new cell phone towers, a railway reservation office, helicopter landing pads, lodges with hot water available in the room. Prices soared. When a wave of water and rock crashed down upon Kedarnath last month it crashed down upon a site bursting at the seams—had this event happened twenty years ago deaths and destruction would have been far, far less. This disaster feels to me like th…
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…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…
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…SoulCycle, ANYONE can be an Athlete, a Legend, a Warrior, a Renegade or a Rockstar,” the IPO filing explains. “It is the place people come, regardless of their age, athletic ability, size, shape, profession or personality, to connect with their best selves.” On the other hand, scarcity is essential to SoulCycle’s business model. The classes may be open to anyone “regardless of their…profession,” but I somehow doubt that sanitation workers outnumb…
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…k stops being a spectator and starts being a participant, does come back a little more inspired, a little more aware of the possibilities of being human. Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo” (a portion of which is quoted above) relates a similar kind of secular revelation. Rilke, remember, had written a number of more intellectual, more idea-oriented poems, but he grew tired of their disembodied conceptualizations. He wanted to write like Rodin sculp…
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