Religion Dispatches
…force us to leave,” Robertson concluded. “I felt the full weight of their fear, and where there is such fear, we can be certain that there is no possibility of love. Phone calls and an email inquiry to representatives of the Southern Baptist Convention were not returned….
Read More
…le’s boosters promise that the town has enough bed-and-breakfasts and cell phone towers to transform the eclipse into a comfortable tourist experience, there is a fundamental strangeness to the whole affair that no amount of merchandizing can fully defang. That it’s hard to reduce the weirdness of things like the eclipse hasn’t stopped Hopkinsville from trying. More than a half-century ago, on Monday, August 22, 1955, news media around the country…
Read More…cedented attention. Mayor Mick Cornett has already received 450 emails and phone calls opposing the event. Archbishop Paul Coakley has also condemned the event and called on Catholics to protest if it moves forward. Daniels, naturally, has expressed delight that his antics are finally provoking Church officials. This newfound energy has nothing to do with Daniels and everything to do with the events of last May. An online petition features footage…
Read More
…courts for more than a decade. We used the internet to regroup and grow in numbers. The Church even developed its own web-based resources to acknowledge and address its own controversies—historic and contemporary. This, we thought, was a good sign. A sign that might not need to fear losing our membership, our place, in a cherished tradition, just for having and voicing questions, doubts, and differences. We told ourselves to not to be afraid. And…
Read More
…verything we’ve been doing for the last 10 years,” Sinno says, speaking by phone from a recent tour stop in San Francisco. “A big part of what we do and why we address politics and gender and class and whatever – be that through our music and through our positions in the public eye – a big part of that is about trying to create sort of a cultural roster for people to identify with and feel emboldened by. And it felt like for a few days, we had to…
Read More
…bout the cover? I love the cover. I took that picture myself (with my cell phone), and the press did a great job with the layout. The picture is of a hallway in Dystopia Haunted House, a big haunted attraction in Denmark. I’m doing some scientific consulting for them and have also done two large-scale quantitative research projects on recreational fear in the haunt, so it seemed only appropriate to use an image of one of their sets. It’s atmospher…
Read More…imself an unexpected media darling. Becky Garrison caught up with Bell via phone to talk about his motivations, the reactions of his friends and family, and what he hopes to discover. BG: What’s your reaction to this surge of media coverage? RB: When I started this, I thought my blog would only be read by a few people. It’s been surreal. I have no clue how to make anything go viral, so this is totally unexpected. But eventually, I think this atten…
Read More
…n edited and condensed version of our conversations, which took place over phone and email. FEBRUARY 2017 Since the election, how has your relationship with white evangelicalism shifted? Sundays are hard. The last few months, as the temperature has turned up, I just get angry when sermons don’t address the injustice and violence in our country. I do not want to leave the first church that ever felt like a home to me. I’ve spent my entire Christian…
Read More
…ntacting them and not a single one of them has reached out to me either by phone or Facebook to see how I am. There were a good 5 people in that friend group that I thought I was very close to, but since I stopped attending Church events, none of them have contacted me though I know they are all still involved in the Church. Heather describes her coming out as a nonbeliever to family as “difficult and still a work-in-progress” and further explains…
Read More
…cross religion, science, and society. I reached out to Levinovitz over the phone to discuss organic food, birth control, alternative medicine, and the role of naturalness in explaining COVID-19. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. When did the concept of “natural” first grab your attention? When I was working on food I noticed that people often use “nature” and “natural” as their justification for whatever it was that they happe…
Read More