Religion Dispatches
…able and yet so motivated of late. So I will take this with the small wisdoms or the lessons I learned this Ramadan. In no particular order: Although Allah is always present, in the company of conscientious and devout believers, ones experience of that Divine presence is enhanced. This is what the Sufis mean with the idea of suhbah: companionship for the sake of Allah. But, and here’s the thing I got this year: people are different. It is really,…
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…n’t have true fidelity without some kind of radical equality. So there’s a number of different counterweights there: women need to be free to make choices for themselves, but they need to be faithful to their relationships. Meanwhile, their partner needs to be faithful to the relationship while allowing that person to have some power and some choice. Walter: That’s right. And of course when you say all that, that’s why the issue is so difficult. T…
Read More…a gasbag into a poster boy for the fight against governmental assaults on free speech. What’s more, it’ll only make it easier for Jones to further fuel misperceptions of Muslims as intolerant of criticism, misperceptions that lead too many Americans to conflate all Muslims with violent extremists….
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…ed plans to build 1,600 new homes in a Jewish settlement in an area it claims around Jerusalem, but which the rest of the world recognizes as the occupied West Bank. Though Netanyahu claimed to have been blindsided by the announcement, Biden condemned it. Over the course of the week, the disagreement escalated. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a 45-minute phone call to Netanyahu. Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, after being summoned to the…
Read More…in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” What Southern Baptists are seeking is for employers to force their employees to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Would Christian employees be comfortable being forced by their employers to say Happy Hanukah or Happy Kwanzaa or Happy Ramadan to their customers? What if non-Christian customers don’t wish to be to be greeted with “Merry Christm…
Read More…idends. When the telephone appeared on the scene, some in the SPR threw themselves behind a new contraption called the “psycho-phone” through which the inventors claimed to be hearing the voices of angels. The psychophone no doubt sounds absurd, but I can’t say that it sounds much more far-fetched than a transcranial magnetic stimulator. Both demonstrate the enduring cultural impulse toward techno-theologizing. However much neuroscientists might w…
Read More…ith nods to Spiritualism, New Thought, and New Age mysticism, Goodchild seems to participate in the eclectic, combinative spirituality typical of UFO faith; Wojcik notes that UFO believers draw on sources as diverse as theosophy, Asian religions, science fiction, Scientology, Mormonism and Christianity. Certainly, the October 14 prophecy seems to have resonated with the broader UFO community. A Google search for “Blossom Goodchild” yielded 50,200…
Read More…n Paul II, Pope Benedict sent the following text message to Italian mobile phone users: “Let us go forth in the joy of the risen Lord and trusting in his permanent help.” JPII had been texting Italians with a “thought of the day” while he was still alive, so Benedict was simply carrying on this tradition. Pope Benedict has more recently used text messaging to communicate with attendees throughout this year’s World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia. H…
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…Haffner was critical of the choice of hosts for the presidential faith forums—one, held at Messiah College in April, was organized by FIPL, which pushed for Warren to hold the second at his church in August. Haffner objected that Messiah College’s Web site directs students to “reparative therapy” to “cure” homosexuality, and posts other anti-gay materials, though by the time she brought her concerns to FIPL’s attention, the forum was “a done deal….
Read More…eheran. It is from first generation immigrants that the American-born Muslims learn this yearning for the homeland. First generation immigrant Muslims are a whole other story. Here is where I fall into the same category as most of my friends’ elderly parents. Many of them retain a desire to relax and let religious impulses loose again. As if their lives of prosperity and comfort were a form of secular boot camp. We first-generation immigrants of t…
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