Religion Dispatches
…Southpark’s Mr. Hankey sings a Hanukkah song: Night 6- The Holiday Armadillo brings Hanukkah to Friends: Night 7- Hanukkah Harry saves Easter on Saturday Night Live: Night 8- The Daily Show with Jon Stewart offers its best Hanukah moments: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c Exclusive – Best Hanukkah Moments Mash-up www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor The Daily Show on Facebook …
Read MoreThe best part of Christmas is the advertising. I don’t mean the Coca Cola commercials with Santa and polar bears. I mean stuff like a sonogram of fetal Jesus complete with halo and a tag line reminding us “He’s on His way.” I also always enjoy a good Christmas billboard duel. This season do we celebrate Reason or Jesus? And are those are only choices? Maybe we should settle on the friendlier “Reason’s Greetings.” The only thing I like as much as…
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…New Jersey parochial schools (or maybe because of it). Real life Hollywood best friends Ben Affleck and Matt Damon play Bartleby and Loki, fallen angels who attempt to manipulate a theological loophole in the hopes of returning to Heaven—even if it means the destruction of reality. Several characters gather to prevent this, including Jesus’s last living relative, the secret thirteenth apostle Rufus as played by comedian Chris Rock, and the angel M…
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The best Jewish thinking is conscious of being rooted in a certain historical moment. When theology is simply disinterested commentary on a textual tradition, there is nothing to give it ballast with a reader. But when theology presents itself as commentary for an audience that (so the theologian says) needs this commentary now, then it can transform a community. One of the most widely known bits of modern Jewish theology is Emil Fackenheim’s art…
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…on works in Bascom Hall, and the Bascom dairy on campus sells probably the best ice cream in the state. Likewise Charles Van Hise, the long-serving president of the UW is remembered with a hall where generations of students have studied foreign languages. People outside of Badgerland might be more familiar with Robert “Fighting Bob” LaFollette, founder of the Progressive Party in the early 20th century, and still today an inspiration to lefties. E…
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….g., health, education) but: a) it is no miraculous panacea even under the best of conditions; and b) it can be pernicious when mixed with a focus on the self; selflessness is part of the essence of mindfulness, and self-focus perverts it. Regarding its being a panacea, I show in the book how even the best-designed, most robust research on mindfulness is overhyped. Regarding the pernicious effects of self-focus, those are general in a species that…
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…ive our lives from a place of Holy integrity and love that has an organic authority of its own. It’s that integrity that will let us know when to speak and act, and when to walk away. Jesus says when you’ve tried your best—you’ve made your best arguments against the powers that be, in love, and they still don’t get it, let them know, in no uncertain terms, that you have zero fucks left to give. Wipe the dust off your feet. …
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…n the latest report from PRRI on Christian nationalism in the US? Only the best description of the American political landscape in quite some time. But let’s understand why. PRRI asked respondents in their American Values Atlas survey to what extent they agreed with a series of statements related to Christian nationalism: The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation. U.S. laws should be based on Christian values. If the U.S. moves…
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…g to take. The social review by the team is highly subjective, even in the best scenarios. Since donated organs are a scarce resource, the goal is often to find the best host (recipient) for the organ so that it does not go to waste. In that environment, organs tend to go to people who can have a full-time caregiver, has family who will help with care, doesn’t take personal risks, and has a medical history of doing what doctors tell them to do. Al…
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…hat he couldn’t see the science shifting, and soon found himself earnestly promoting vitamin supplements and a “psychic energizer” called deaner. Narrow-minded objectivity also got the best of Lori and Larry Altobelli, a couple living in Leominster, Boston whose second child, Joshua, was born with autism. Leominster was once nicknamed “the Plastic City” for its booming plastics industry, until the resulting pollution produced dangerous hazardous w…
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