Religion Dispatches
…er 14 of 27 documents. When the book of Revelation comes at the end of the New Testament, it makes the whole of the New Testament sound as if we’re still looking forward to the second coming of Jesus and what is popularly called ‘the end of the world.’ When the book of Revelation appears more or less in the middle, we see it, hear it and understand it as a document produced in a particular time and place that tells us about what that Christ commun…
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…us (RIP) said nothing about new ideas or worlds within. It was all about a new land, a new world defined strictly geographically. As long as the myth was vibrant, it assured Americans that they needed no sophisticated concepts. The land of the United States itself (which became, in the U.S. version of the myth, synonymous with the “America” Columbus “discovered”) would be the paradise Columbus sought. It would exude all of his mythic qualities: co…
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…ued, regardless of why they support BDS, the fanatics and fools are simply promoting a new anti-Semitism. Once Jews were singled out and held to a different standard than other peoples. Today, the Jewish State is singled out and held to a difference standard than other countries. [Emphasis added.] This is an interesting claim. The unjustified singling out of Jews which has been emblematic of anti-Semitism historically is now transferred to an enti…
Read More…ience of hadith collection. The Muslims who collected sayings of Muhammad knew that people were making things up and created checks and the best methodology that they could at the time to stop it. Modern scholars are revisiting the existing corpus with new tools and methods. Why a famous mosque inscription may refer not to Muhammad but, astonishingly, to Jesus. Stumped by this one. No idea what it refers to. How the oldest records referring to a…
Read More…t list states where aid in dying legislation has recently been introduced (New Mexico, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, and Hawaii) and states where it is already legal (Oregon since 1994 and Washington since 2008) and you’re likely to conclude that dead isn’t what it used to be. And you’d be right. Dead used to mean three things: you weren’t breathing, your heart wasn’t beating, and your brain wasn’t working. But in the 1970s, respirators and de…
Read More…se people, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities.” The new version asks if the church is “capable of providing for these people, guaranteeing … them … a place of fellowship in our communities.” The first version said homosexual unions can often constitute a “precious support in the life of the partners.” The new one says gay unions often constitute “valuable support in the life of these persons.” In nearly all cases, the first…
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…diplomatic description than the simple recitation of facts. The arrival of new diplomats in Vatican City has also birthed a sort of new genre, the formal papal welcome; one that the current Pope has utilized to remind his new partners of just how un-modern, and even anti-modern, their new diplomatic home is. Modernity, after all, is characterized by this Pope as a moment of restless and breathless innovation, in contrast to his conception of the t…
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…nation, it is impossible to know whether opening communion would encourage newcomers or turn away existing members, but it is certainly an issue worth following. The End is Where? It goes almost without saying that mainline Protestantism is in an extended period of at least numerical, if not spiritual, decline, and many commentators have taken the occasion of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church—still an important symbol of normative Ame…
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…assignment for The Washington Post, a cover story for the magazine about a new African American synagogue in DC started in 2008 by Mother Dailey’s grandson, Eli Aronoff. (Aronoff claims no Ashkenazi ancestry despite his surname—his father was from rural South Carolina.) Neither my story nor the new congregation succeeded—the Post axed the story during a shakeup of the magazine’s editorial staff in 2009, and Aronoff’s congregation recently decided…
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…most of the members that I spoke with on Saturday, many of whom are young newcomers to the city. Krewe du Jieux offers a chance to join in on the fun, blending Jewish and New Orleanian cultural traditions: a klezmer-inflected brass band that occasionally bursts into a jazzy rendition of Hava Nagila. There are, of course, lots of ways to participate in carnival. Many krewes have open membership and no waiting lists. But the distinctively culturall…
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