Religion Dispatches
…tely take a long time, so better not to try to start it here. So, the good news is that things are picking up; the embassy is processing hajj visas at last. The bad news is, I have to miss the opportunity to travel again to Berlin and engage with friends and colleagues over the other light of my heart: Islam and change. Still, I linger long over the wisdom of Ghandi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Maybe I won’t get to talk about it…
Read More…yre, one of its teachers, hit me on a more personal level. I took Sherry’s world religions and world geography course as a freshman in high school a decade ago. What Laycock’s piece didn’t capture is just how conservative a city Modesto is, and how much hope there is in the fact that they implemented this course so successfully. Modesto is no Berkeley, no San Francisco, no New York. Modesto is known for its low literacy, high crime, and conservati…
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…Remain? As the attacks illustrate a deep problem in Bangladesh, these two stories illustrate a deeper success: since February 2015, more than a dozen writers, publishers, and activists—and, in some cases, their entire families—have escaped Bangladesh and found safe haven. Yet for every public success story, dozens remain threatened in Bangladesh, forced to quit their jobs and public activity and live underground until a solution can be found. Som…
Read More…llness, that led to the attack. He explained, “It’s about loyalty and constructing a world where this makes sense.” Similarly, criminologist Jack Levin opined, “I think it’s the chemistry between these two girls. It was insane. Not in their minds but in their relationship.” I submit that Geyser and Weier were engaged in a form of play that extended the Slender Man legend complex through performance. Then, in a moment of lowered inhibitions, irrevo…
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…ry, so when he lands and wreaks havoc, it seems random, senseless, and destructive for destruction’s sake. Or as some would define it, evil. This may be one way to understand James Holmes’ identification with the Joker. From what we know so far, he was a loner, far from home, and when asked about the kid they used to know, friends have only been able to manage brief and generic descriptions such as, “quiet, kept to himself.” Admittedly, the same c…
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…embly “combating the defamation of religions.” Now that there is some good news, almost no one has noticed. Late last month, the UN issued a new statement on the extent of freedom of speech under international law. It says that laws restricting blasphemy as such are incompatible with universal human rights standards. The statement came from the Human Rights Committee, the body of eighteen “independent experts” mandated to monitor compliance with t…
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…eighbor. Luther rejected the distinction between divine church and secular world, the world was as much the realm of God’s grace and preservation as the church—the whole world is the place of God’s creation. So Lutherans hear in sermons again and again that they are sent into the world to love the neighbor, to carry out their vocation in the world. The secular is not the place where God is absent, it is the place where Lutherans are called to serv…
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…t past the poem titles—some of which, like certain representations of the crucifixion, run hyperbolic in their attempt to fit a theme: “gnostic bukakki” is a bit much, on purpose. Other readers will find there’s simply too many oral sex references per page, though as U2 showed us some dozen albums ago, an oral fixation does come organically with a tradition of wine and wafers, descent and rising up, kneeling and being filled with spirit. Krieger,…
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…t for the book, which is available online and includes relevant photos and videos. The word limit also restricted the book’s scope. If I had more space, I would have profiled more organizations (there are so many) and provided additional detail on the initiatives I did include. Some of the groups in this book have incredible histories that mirror the tumultuous events in regional countries. While we so often view history from the top down, many of…
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…nd (as we used to say on the farm), you don’t miss the water till the well runs dry. No amount of posturing, no airbrushing over the reality of an atomized society, can change this. I’m not counseling despair here. I think our stores of positive social capital can be replenished. If nothing else, the climate crisis will soon cause us to re-think our devotion to the unofficial American religion of acquisitive individualism. So will the frustration…
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