Religion Dispatches
…ot. After that, he stayed more often after class, one day whipping out his phone to show me a photo of a white supremacist leader standing up in a convertible during what was obviously a white pride parade. The red-faced, fist waving man in the picture was flanked by two little girls sitting in the back seat, arms crossed with very pronounced frowns on their faces. “They don’t look all that happy,” I remarked to my student. “Those are my daughters…
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…ed. Hand-in-hand with the pet business comes forced breeding, puppy mills, and “exotic” wildlife trapping (which was the backdrop of Netflix’s popular Tiger King series). Finally, billions of animals will be factory farmed to become cat and dog food. We cannot deny the ecological paw print of companion animals either. The pope is right about this: pet-keeping, like any widespread practice with an adjacent industry, certainly has the capacity for s…
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…ia claimed that this was intergalactic “bus fare” for admittance onto the spaceship. But Jones was told the money was actually a sort of inside joke. Before 1997 Heaven’s Gate members had spent decades travelling and living “off the grid.” They had run afoul of local laws claiming that anyone without at least five dollars could be defined as a vagrant. So members always carried five dollars and money for a phone call. Benjamin Zeller, author of He…
Read More…erence talk shaming homosexuality. “I have a brother who said to me on the phone last Christmas, ‘Elder Packer says God does not make gays. This is your choice.’ And then he used some very hurtful language with me,” Jahn relates. “I had to hang up on him. But he feels he has been given permission to speak this way by the prophet.” “Even a simple phrase uttered by a General Authority can give Church members broad permission to look down on, discrim…
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…ncidence that the social movements that have most lit a fire of passionate participation in the last few years have been leaderless. Occupy and Black Lives Matter both exist because people made them happen out of a sense of urgency. Institutions move slowly in comparison, but if any religious tradition were able to pick up on some of the energy and prophetic sensibility in those many-voiced choruses, it might actually be compelling. Can this happe…
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…front door again and again. The doorknob rattles, and the family’s pain is palpable—it is almost as if she remembers that this house was once her home. In a pivotal scene, Morgan decides to shoot this zombie who was once his wife, an agonizing decision. He tells his son to cover his ears. From a second story window, he takes aim at his wife as she shambles near the house, but he breaks down and sobs, unable to pull the trigger. What if part of the…
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…A software engineer from Singapore, Tan joined Google in 2000 as employee number 107. He later founded the company’s in-house meditation program and became one of corporate mindfulness’ most visible advocates. Though Tan left Google six months ago, his final official job title at the company still doubles as his nickname: Jolly Good Fellow. Over the course of two phone conversations, RD asked Tan—who was, in fact, quite jolly—if mindfulness is a…
Read More…n knowledge that porn was the major driver of internet technological and capacity innovation before the advent of the smart phone. And if we want to start a serious conversation about where presidential candidates get their money and how ethical that money is, let’s do it. I have a laundry list of labor, environmental, feminist, and human rights issues with multinational corporations I’d love to start working through. But don’t give me a thin, o…
Read More…n the yard out front. Perhaps what I am feeling is a loss from all this company celebrating this time with the Queen. She has not yet departed after all, and we are still honored by her visit. Perhaps it is the deafening silence of being so removed from the hustle and bustle of the cities and even from my own family that makes me feel a bit melancholy. I should probably catch ride outside the gates of the estate where I can have bars for my cell p…
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…Mennonite tradition of Yoder, it is to some extent a withdrawal: we don’t participate in the political process. I understand, you maintain another kind of presence, but yeah. Dan: On a certain level Yoder, of course, would not have been very interested in that question at all. He’d just say, “Well Mennonites do what Mennonites do, whether that’s a withdrawal or an alternative witness doesn’t make any difference.” How do we find that kind of coven…
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