Religion Dispatches
…sses in the Hamptons (which includes early class signups) runs for $4,000. New York magazine interviewed one New York City rider who, by the magazine’s estimate, was spending more than $21,000 on SoulCycle each year. A single class, sans early sign-up perks, costs nearly as much as a month-long membership at my local YMCA. Meanwhile, back on SoulCycle’s website, instructors describe their work in frankly spiritual language. Here’s the lightly cond…
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What inspired you to write The Eternal Present of Sport: Rethinking Sport and Religion? A recurring argument in sport studies (and popular commentaries as well) is that sport is a form of “civil religion” that creates social cohesion around shared values and rituals. There’s this constant image of fans transcending political differences as games transport them from “profane” to “sacred” time. That image has been criticized effectively by scholars…
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…ually have a single beth din while larger communities, like those found in New York and New Jersey, may have many. These include beth dins that specialize in sexual abuse, though they are few; Rabbi Basil Herring, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America, says there are probably no more than two or three in the country. Perhaps unsurprisingly, beth din rabbis are often reluctant to speak about their work. Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Wein…
Read More…It’s the new dark ages.” How was this heard in Rome, in the context of the new conservatism, the new oligarchy, and the new barbarism of the second regime of Roberto Berlusconi? They can burn books, records, and they can torch the environment. And how, by contrast, was it heard by me, an expatriate North American, who heard these same images—of burned books and new dark ages—when given voice by a bright young man from San Francisco? They can burn…
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…merican woman who cares more about gender than about the poor to whom this new pope is dedicated. But let’s be clear: half of the world’s poor are women, and the Church’s effort to deprive the Catholic women among them of contraceptives, of the use of condoms that could protect them from HIV-AIDS, and of the ministry of women priests who would marry, absolve, and anoint them, is no service to them. Even as President Ronald Reagan challenged Michae…
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…eed to oversimplify when you are working with laypeople who are completely new to this kind of material? John Dominic Crossan: From about 1970 to 1990 I was writing primarily, if not exclusively, for a scholarly audience up to and including The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (1991). After Peter Steinfels referenced my book on the front page of the New York Times, I began to accept invitations to speak at churches. Bec…
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…ze sabbath principles to non-Jews? Most importantly: Is Shabbat really the new yoga? Unlike yoga, Shabbat is difficult to commodify. The biggest new sabbath boosters are all nonprofits with social missions. But, certainly, it’s easy to imagine how a slightly exotic practice of mandated rest could, in the right hands, become an interfaith wellness touchstone: feel good through this ancient spiritual wisdom! Shabbat certainly resonates with an afflu…
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…ent. His 1991 book on democratization, The Third Wave, foresaw the wave of new democratic movements that accompanied the end of the Cold War. In the early 1990s, observers of global politics searched for ways of understanding the new world disorder in the wake of the Cold War and the rise of globalization. Frances Fukuyama proclaimed an “end of history.” Benjamin Barber saw the centrifugal tendencies of a globalized “McWorld” in conflict with the…
Read More…d harassment of human rights defenders.” Uganda: Museveni says no need for new anti-gay law Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said publicly that there is no need for a new anti-gay law because the country already bans same-sex sexual behavior. Anti-gay lawmakers have been pushing for re-passage of the Anti Homosexuality Act that was overturned by a court for procedural reasons. Ireland: Marriage equality a reality by year’s end The Belfast Telegra…
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…rom a non-religious perspective. His outlook is grim. Nature is dangerous. New technologies are creating even more vectors for disaster. And some apocalypse-minded religious groups, Torres argues, might harness those new technologies in order to manufacture their own end-of-days. Plus, there could be aliens. While reading The End, I spent a lot of time wondering whether Torres was prescient or nuts. Much to his credit,Torres is happy to discuss bo…
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