Religion Dispatches
…ionship with his sixty-something, highly observant LDS father. My friend described a brief, tension-laden phone call between father and son, wedged into a few free minutes after a church meeting. “Now, I’m going to serve my family,” said the father, bringing the call to a close. “Because that’s what I do.” And Mitt Romney is going to serve his country. Because that’s what he does. Like it or not. That joyless put-your-shoulder-to-the-wheel tenacit…
Read More…and within days an official at LDS Church headquarters placed a concerned phone call to Melanie S.’s local clergy. Three times her bishop met with Melanie to discuss the video. Because she had affiliated with “Mormons for Marriage,” he questioned whether or not Melanie and her husband should be allowed to keep their temple recommends—certificates that allow the most worthy and devoted Mormons to participate in the faith’s sacred temple rites. Nor…
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…rk Film Festival, along with about 700 other attendees. I wish I had their phone numbers; even the disgusted dozens who walked out halfway through. I’d like to call them at 3:00 a.m. and ask what they are thinking about, what they are dreaming, if indeed they are sleeping. I need some therapy. This is one messed-up film. The beauty of Antichrist is in distinct contrast to many of von Trier’s previous films. From the early 1990s until now, his film…
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…ourners/Call to Renewal organization do not engage or take seriously the discourse of those it claims to serve—i.e. the poor—a discourse which is best embodied by the radical tradition of African-American religion. Wallis’ inability to claim the radical politics of the prophetic tradition serves to undermine the stated mission of his working, thereby limiting his capacity to articulate the development of an authentic Religious Left. Indeed, Wallis…
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…r of the Baylor Religion Surveys. The Cubit recently reached out to him by phone to discuss purpose, religion in modernity, and the brilliance of Tony Robbins. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. In your book you argue that modernity has brought about a kind of existential confusion, and you discovered this in an interesting way: by comparing levels of happiness and purposefulness to per-capita GDP. Could you tell us more abou…
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…can archbishop.”) Spain: Evangelical Alliance proposing amendments to nondiscrimination bill The Spanish Evangelical Alliance is proposing amendments to an LGBT nondiscrimination bill that has drawn harsh criticism of Religious Right groups, including the Alliance Defending Freedom: It comes after the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal lobby analysed the bill’s text and said ‘the Equality Bill in its current form legislates…
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…s people. So hard-working, in fact, that many took it upon themselves to rescue friends and strangers from the rising waters, to open their homes to those made homeless, and to volunteer at shelters and places of worship. Some may say that Mother Nature does not discriminate. That may be true, but it’s also true that people of means have a much greater capacity to withstand the havoc wreaked by disasters, natural or otherwise. Many have begun to c…
Read More…w auditory technologies could well yield spiritual dividends. When the telephone appeared on the scene, some in the SPR threw themselves behind a new contraption called the “psycho-phone” through which the inventors claimed to be hearing the voices of angels. The psychophone no doubt sounds absurd, but I can’t say that it sounds much more far-fetched than a transcranial magnetic stimulator. Both demonstrate the enduring cultural impulse toward tec…
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…ly by Democrats and Republicans, from left to right, albeit in different discursive tones. Whereas prominent figures and ordinary citizens on the right might openly attack Muslims as “rag heads” who subscribe to a “wicked” faith, those leaning left tend to reproduce the same demeaning tropes through a liberal veneer of concern about Muslim women, preserving secular values, national security and so on. Therefore, as some Muslims see it, Donald Trum…
Read More…bureaucracies, micro-managed by men with photographic memories who could describe, on the phone at long distance, where a file was located, and what page in that file needed scanning. There was obsessive record-keeping, coupled with a mastery of spin. (Squillari suggests that Madoff planted several pieces of evidence in his office in order to be arrested on his own timetable and on his own terms). The most haunting line in the article is a descrip…
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