Religion Dispatches
…ou need to know to keep on reading? I’d cheerfully watch that man read the phone book. So, when my buddy Rev. El Mundo sent me the link to the comedian’s message, I eagerly clicked on it. I was surprised when I saw this wasn’t a clip of his latest hysterical stand up, but an essay he penned for the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog. The topic of his essay was how he came to be an atheist. The whole piece is here. While there is humor in the pie…
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…him inside. The church was lovely and old, paintings on the walls, mosaic floors, an altar with fresh flowers. It was a real church, not a tourist site, and we sat quietly in a sanctuary where others worshipped. A woman crossed herself finally and stood up. She was my mother’s age, stooped and limping, wearing a headscarf. As she left the church, she began to sing. “Emmanuel,” singing that word over and over, her voice strong and unapologetic. Ev…
Read More…ased, Monk openly appeared (in possible violation of military code) at the Values Voters Summit for a panel. The Liberty Institute’s Jeff Mateer put his hand on Monk’s shoulder and praised him, saying, “We’ve gotten phone calls from military members who are undergoing discrimination…and with the exception of him, those folks that have called us have all wanted to remain anonymous. Sergeant Monk, to his credit, is willing to stand up.” Let’s read…
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…I’m not trading in my TREO, and I’m not canceling the media package on my phone or reducing the number of messages I sent through that magical device. I am not calling for a technology purge. I’m simply noting that technology comes with a price, and this price has something of a postmodern twist. By this I mean that tweeting and other high-tech modalities of exchange send information about happenings, attitudes, feelings, and events—but in a way…
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…pate in Islamic conversations. America, a Muslim-minority state, is as relevant to Islam as a Muslim-majority state. In fact, America is the most relevant: We are the hinge at which Muslim-minority and -majority meet. It’s a fascinating, controversial, and confusing mix of short-term power politics predicated on presumed long-term trends, wedding through American resources the potential capacities of Muslim-majority states and the mobile potency o…
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…le to my religion. And yet, in the book, you say the whole basis of that “evangelical” bent of many Christian churches, the “Great Commission” in Matthew, wasn’t an order to convert the world to our religion. What does it really mean? It means you have to go beyond the boundaries of your own security system based on your own fears. It means you have to go to those you have classified as unclean or unsaved and you’ve got to tell them that the love…
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…s amount to the equivalent of however many billion sightings. I think that number was inflated. But it doesn’t matter much. What’s the difference between ten billion views and, say, one billion views? It’s all bad. It’s just this question of magnitude. It’s a little bit like you’ve seen the tip of the iceberg, and someone tells “You know, 90% of it is underneath.” I had a similar experience when I was working on my first book, Communities of Viole…
Read More…will be my year. Few things have made me feel so vulnerable and yet so motivated of late. So I will take this with the small wisdoms or the lessons I learned this Ramadan. In no particular order: Although Allah is always present, in the company of conscientious and devout believers, ones experience of that Divine presence is enhanced. This is what the Sufis mean with the idea of suhbah: companionship for the sake of Allah. But, and here’s the thin…
Read More…al quality effort Uruguay has joined the Global Equality Fund, a public-private partnership, “a public-private partnership the State Department manages with the U.S. Agency for International Development,” reports the Washington Blade’s Michael Lavers. Marriage equality became the law in 2013; the country will host a global LGBT rights conference in April 2016. Bolivia: President apologizes for ‘lesbian’ remark President Evo Morales apologized afte…
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…st the beat, stop the propulsive poetics of Emanuel’s Pulse: Pulse / cardiovascular movement / on the dance floor / sacred spirit’s thumb and strum / now under cardiac / arrest’s / storm and stress / Pulse’s Emanuel / a metaphysical condition of holy ghostliness on the dance floor / feel the beat / breath’s percussive rhythm / pulsation’s respiration / its aspirational inhalation / its exasperational exhalation / Emanuel’s Pulse, a “pneumatic pact…
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