Religion Dispatches
…tch ride outside the gates of the estate where I can have bars for my cell phone and get in touch with them later today. Before the shaykh arrives, I continue with my Qur’an reading. I don’t use the tiny mp3 player anymore because this last juz’ includes most of the Qur’an that I have memorized myself, and this is more a review than a simple reflective read. Coming to the end of the Qur’an reading is also melancholy, and I forget why I felt I shou…
Read More…nd the faithful with comparisons to the sufferings of Jesus or the righteousness of the current Pope are a smokescreen at best, and perfidious at worst. I don’t know what the rationale of the Vatican or its spokesmen is right now, but I do know that these denunciations of the media ring hollow to many members of the Catholic Church. It rings hollow to me. It also calls into question my continued affiliation with an organization that has institutio…
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…ople of Starship UK from their mysterious bondage, their self-imposed amnesia. The Doctor is an anarchist messiah, a man capable of transforming simple protest into liberation. There’s something else at play in this episode that digs a bit deeper into the question of moral identity. The Doctor learns the mysterious fact that the city-ship’s populace has repeatedly voted to forget, which is—spoiler warning!—that their city is built on the back of a…
Read More…raphed a piece of paper on the dashboard of Roeder’s car: It contained the phone number of Cheryl Sullenger, Operation Rescue’s senior policy advisor, who served two years in prison for conspiring to bomb abortion clinics in 1988. Roeder also told me that Sullenger was present at the lunch with Newman where they discussed “justifiable” homicide, and that Newman had given Roeder the autographed copy of his book just three months before Roeder kille…
Read More…ts founder Gary DeMar, as well as those of one of its most well-known associates, Gary North, the son-in-law of Christian Reconstructionist founder R.J. Rushdoony, and a supporter of Ron Paul whose economic writings have also influenced Rand Paul. The goal is to return America to its Biblical foundations “from Genesis to Revelation” (a postmillennial reading of Revelation, which holds that the Second Coming will occur after an era of Christian dom…
Read More…t. Vernon’s Minute Men United, a militant organization that endorses Christian theocracy, and one of Freshwater’s most active supporters, told me in a January phone interview, “That is not the arm of Zachary Dennis, or if it is, it was not a mark left by John Freshwater.” When asked to clarify, Daubenmire at first denied he was accusing the Dennis family of lying. Then he accused them of being in it for money. Then he wanted to know if I was a Chr…
Read More…far between. The New York Times builds its whole story out of a handful of phone calls and an email. But the article indicates that those who run the various nonprofits that help soldiers achieve conscientious objector status expect a floodgate of calls if Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is formally repealed. The good news is that the groups don’t think there is legal basis for the claims. In the “don’t ask, don’t tell” cases, Ms. McNeil concluded that there…
Read More…Polish tinfoil hat so can wear it to Restoring Honor Rally 7. Find E.T. 8. Phone home Sarah Palin 1. Conference call with Smokey the Bear to map out guerrilla grizzly action plan 2. Primp for photo shoot with Today’s Christian Woman 3. Order camouflage Bible 4. Call Pat Robertson for spiritual guidance 5. Put hubbie on short leash 6. See if can find any prayer warriors willing to go all biblical on Levi 7. Send Rush a belated wedding gift Mel Gibs…
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…. (The other commemorates Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son, which coincides with the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.) Traditionally, Muslims wake up early on Eid, dress in their finest, and make a trip out to the mosque for a special holiday prayer and sermon. Then, there is usually some kind of brunch, and people spend the rest of the day visiting friends and family, and eating as often as they can. (It is, after all, marking the end of a month of f…
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…on the heels of the birth of my second grandson. One minute we were on the phone and I was describing the birth event and sharing photos on Facebook. The next day, she went to bed, coughed once, and then breathed no more. She was 44. I thought about her when I read in the Qur’an how “every soul will have its taste of death.” So gentle was her moment of passing, and yet so painful has been these few months without her here to enjoy this Ramadan to…
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