Religion Dispatches
…religious institutions, particularly organizations that feature a hierarchical structure or esoteric teachings. Today’s cyber attack confirmed these predictions. As an acephalous group with no organizational structure, Anonymous is exactly the sort of movement than benefits from this leveling effect. In addition to the Westboro Baptist Church, which has gone to unprecedented lengths to upset and alienate others, the chief targets of Anonymous have…
Read More…posthumous baptism of Holocaust victims, while Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel called on presidential candidate Mitt Romney to intervene in the situation. (Wiesel’s name was also located in the LDS genealogical database by Salt Lake City-based watchdog Helen Radkey, but Church officials clarified that the names of Mr. Wiesel and his relatives were never submitted for baptism.) This post has been updated – Eds These incidents have reignited a long-simm…
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…me and my family if there was another Holocaust. He said no,” Auslander recalled. “I was like, ‘What are you, an anti-Semite?’ And he goes, ‘No, I wouldn’t hide you. I would hide other Jews, but you are a pain in the ass.’” All of this was, naturally, a black humor marketing ploy for Auslander’s novel, which depicts Anne Frank not as Roth’s survivor-ingenue, but as a bitter old crone lodged in the attic of the novel’s protagonist. In Auslander’s…
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…Planned Parenthood announced in a press release: Recently, one group has escalated these hoax visits in many states, apparently using secret recorders while inquiring about sex-selection abortions. We anticipate that this group, likely in coordination with a broad range of anti-choice leaders, will soon launch a propaganda campaign with the goal of discrediting Planned Parenthood, and, ultimately, furthering legislation that blocks access to basic…
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…r, what Rimer will most be remembered for is his career as an expert on so-called “occult crime.” Rimer became interested in this field in the late 1980s at the height of the Satanic Panic phenomenon. Banking on his credentials as a police officer, Rimer held seminars for law enforcement on criminal activity allegedly associated with Goth and vampire culture, heavy metal music, role-playing games, Wicca, Afro-Atlantic religions, and Satanism. Thes…
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…ld nod to the “reason for the season” without turning itself into an altar call. The difficulty of walking the line between the sacred and the secular is one reason why most of them are so much dreck. All of which made this year’s holiday offering from the Travel Channel’s food-porn hit No Reservations such a surprise. Anthony Bourdain, the celebrity chef and bestselling author, as well as the program’s host and guiding intelligence, has put toget…
Read More…as the case may be—is enough to win you a “Daniel” award from the evangelical World magazine. The magazine has bestowed its annual honor on Alan Chambers, head of the “ex-gay” outfit Exodus. The award, of course, is named for Daniel, who was protected by angels after being thrown in the lion’s den (recounted in Daniel 6). World apparently sees Chambers as a Daniel facing the lions of pro-gay and lesbian equality. Critics have called him a bigot,…
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…brity superstars like Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber as the “most engaging” locale on Facebook. But it’s hardly spiritually lonely at the top for the inspiration and prayer page started by weight-loss doctor Aaron Tabor. The “Dios Es Bueno” (God is Good), “The Bible,” and “Joyce Meyer Ministries” pages all hang out in the top ten, and five more religious pages fill out the bottom half of the top twenty. In all, more than half of the top twenty most e…
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…in dumpsters. Many falsely thought the movement wouldn’t survive its physical eviction and material destruction. They were and are wrong. Sacred space may start with tents and have a middle stage in church buildings, even sanctuaries. But sacred space has no need of one place. It can occupy many at the same time. They did not destroy all the books in the Occupy library. Some of those books are being retrieved at the New York Police Department “lo…
Read More…mplished recently by the Human Genome Project, which indicates that anatomically modern humans emerged from primate ancestors about 100,000 years ago, from a population of something like 10,000. In short, science has confirmed what many of us already knew: there was not a literal first couple. So what else can we learn from this story? Plenty, it turns out. Peter Enns, a biblical scholar who blogs at Patheos, has been following the discussion with…
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