Religion Dispatches
…ustoms before local registration. Then we went to the farmers’ market, the flea markets, and the swap meet. She insists on using a baby carrier instead of a stroller. So I held her six-month-old while she pillaged through a sea of clothing. That’s a lot of holding, trust me. When we finally returned to her place, I was hungry, but I just could not take another moment of being so family-oriented. I decided I would rather brace the rush-hour traffic…
Read More…sparks struck from a flint. At 2:30 in the morning, the light came down to Florida. I went to bed, confident that we would have a new president when I awoke. In 2001, that new president’s administration had barely begun when the World Trade Center collapsed, the Pentagon burned, a plane evaporated into the hills not too far from where we lived. A strangely quiet day grew quieter. One of my parishioners broke a lunch date, explaining that her bank’…
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…is leadership cease and desist from Facebook. After all, looking up an old flame or your teenage dream à la Katy Perry is just the first step down the road to perdition — especially if your home life isn’t exactly what it used to be. What is interesting to me is that the conservative Christian cry used to be stop watching porn on the internet, or that your kids would be pimped out on the internet by perverts. Now, social media has become the lates…
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…“blessings” (friendship, new home) or “burdens” (anger, money), shake the phone, and get a Bible verse to guide reflection in the course of daily life. What is cool about apps like the Holy Roller is not, however, just what they contain and how that has been selected, but where they go and what comes back. That is, a user of the Holy Roller can share a meaningful verse with others, and they can also send suggestions of topics and related verses t…
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…s virtues and strengths. Granted, I’ve written more about its failings and flaws; but if I thought the benefits of remaining Mormon outweighed the costs, I would still be a practicing Mormon. In particular, we are asked to explain aspects of LDS politics, at least recently. Latter-day Saints are generally among the most politically conservative voters in the U.S., and the church has marshaled both its own and its members’ resources to support cons…
Read More…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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…ut-face from Sherry Turkle—makes clear that we indeed must take “time to reflect on our [communication] choices and to foster human relations that are truly deep and lasting.” But this does not mean that relationships developed in global, digital spaces are any less “real” than those with the neighbor down the street to whom we nod in passing, but with whom we never otherwise engage in any “deeply true” way. Moreover, in the era of mobile technolo…
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…most of the species-specific questions behind. Instead, this year’s crop reflects anxieties (as well as promises) about who we are and who we might be becoming in and as humans, in our own skins—never mind the “prawns” or “Na’vi.” Questions provoked by this year’s films include those concerning the nature of our selves in connection and collision with our families, our larger social institutional entanglements, and our own bodies. The other key t…
Read More…conservative and evangelical voters in Iowa, where the Marriott-porn issue flared up for a brief moment in July 2007. (Back then, Romney even came in for criticism from the LDS Church-owned Deseret News, in an editorial with the unfortunate title “The nasty taint of porn.”) I don’t buy it. Anyone who understands the traction of evangelical anti-Mormon sentiment knows that most evangelical voters will never vote for Mitt Romney, especially if the…
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…es, but imagine a latchkey kid saying “I’m sorry, my mom can’t come to the phone right now” instead of “Nope! I’m home alone and defenseless!” and you’ve got the basic idea. Not surprisingly, though, a lot of the people who are most particular about Catholic teaching—people otherwise likely to be sympathetic to Rose’s goals—aren’t convinced that’s what’s going on here. And these folks clash, from time to time, with Rose’s fanboys and fangirls. It…
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