Religion Dispatches
…Australians, 15 percent of residents of United Kingdom, and 12 percent of Western Europeans. The post sparked a great discussion in the comment thread from readers. Many of the comments were from atheists and non-believers who told poignant stories about being ostracized by family members once they came “out of the closet,” so to speak. So, recently a family member, who is a devout Christian, read the post and told me that she was upset that I di…
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…f one sitcom, of course, but this one does raise interesting questions: Is Western antipathy toward nature spirituality eroding? Is it becoming more conventionally acceptable to mock religion? Does nature religion hold particular appeal for post-theists, or agnostics? Will we see in our popular media more expressions of nature spirituality, going forward? I would not argue that golfing should be understood as a new nature religion. I do think, how…
Read More…a pack of marginally Mormon polygamists on a murderous rampage across the Western states. Jon Krakauer is not an authority on Mormonism. It’s a pity that Mormon communities are so reticent to speak for ourselves in terms robust enough for the outside world to understand that folks like Krakauer get the job. I have a call in to a friend in Short Creek (the local name for the polygamous communities of Centennial Park, AZ, Colorado City, AZ, and Hil…
Read More…in to the night? Why shouldn’t we? I’ll tell you why we shouldn’t. Before Western people go to the Middle East in Ramadan, they are warned to be very patient, because things will not get done very efficiently. I was amazed when I lived in Egypt how government workers came to the offices several hours late each day of Ramadan, and then left for home and a nap several hours early. Obviously, you can’t have it both ways: up and about all night and t…
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…a recent report by Israeli think tank the Metzilah Center noted) “the only Western democracy that still lacks an immigration policy.” The old paradigm of Israel as an exclusively repatriation state for Jews is anachronistic. Transparent, coherent criteria for the naturalization of non-Jews—criteria that serve Israel’s unique needs and give advance notice to migrant workers of the conditions of their stay—can help prevent future heart-rending situa…
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…them is no small feat. By the time of Chavez’s ritual finale in 1988, the western zeitgeist had been so shaped and informed by Reaganomics that interest among Chavez’s many publics had waned. The fast, tragically, seemed trite and formulaic in the eyes of some cynical global viewers. Chicano journalist Frank del Olmo understood it differently, however, noting in the Los Angeles Times that, “Chavez…uses his body to make the point…He believes in wh…
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…or For Tyranny: When Nations Deny God’s Natural Law: “As America and many Western nations seem to desire to move away from their Judeo Christian foundations and embrace multi-culturalism, this book gives all the answers to dispel all the anti-God myths and equip people to stand for their Judeo Christian heritage.” Do the Shoebats think that Palestinian-born ex-Muslims would be made welcome in the United States without what they disparage as “mult…
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…ally participatory, dialogical, and collaborative nature of a contemporary Western culture informed by digital social technologies. It inadvertently reinforces a line between “faith” and “life” that believers now routinely transgress. Bible Mash-Up Where religious institutions and their leaders struggle with this cultural transition, religiously committed innovators fill the breach. In an insightful essay in Cultural Encounters, Benjamin Meyers ex…
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…their punching bag, bringing us into the company of those great threats to Western civilization, including gay marriage, Latinos, and a president simultaneously godless and Muslim. I still think back to that day, and wish I’d stood up and said: Those people are not us, and their beliefs are not Islam. But these are the kinds of moments we learn from. It may not be fair to American Muslims that we must prove we are not those who have tortured Islam…
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…ountries, not least because freedom of religion is guaranteed. Despite the western media’s flattening of shari’ah to not much more than an alarm, Abdul-Rauf brings to the concept evidence of classical training and attitudes. For Rauf, like halakha in the Jewish tradition, shari’ah is a way of life that is protected by Constitutional guarantees, themselves a manifestation of what he sees as the goals of shari’ah. In the end, Rauf argues that there…
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