Religion Dispatches
…e throughout his life. And, he was really digging all the apps on his new iPhone. So, eventually, he created an app that would provide “Biblical guidance to your everyday ups and downs.” With it, users select from a scrolling list of “blessings” (friendship, new home) or “burdens” (anger, money), shake the phone, and get a Bible verse to guide reflection in the course of daily life. What is cool about apps like the Holy Roller is not, however, jus…
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…Council, Concerned Women for America, and others. Their goal: to de-fund Planned Parenthood. From some on the religious right, this action has earned Lila Rose the sort of praise reserved for the very noblest heroes of the faith. Comments to her Facebook fan page include comments extolling Rose as “truly an angel,” a “needed hero,” and a “totallt [sic] adorable defender of unborn babies.” (The commenter then corrected his typo in a follow-up comm…
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…w are you going to announce it over social media if you don’t have a smart phone? And smartphones: they are helpful, but they are also limited. I’m working with some of my guides to develop what’s called a WisePhone, and it’s smarter than a smartphone. What are some of the features of the WisePhone? You won’t lose it anymore because it won’t be influenced by gravity, so it won’t fall down the cracks of your couch. It will also be able to tweet or…
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…is your life’s mission to create the conditions for world peace. How? My plan has two pillars. The first is you have to eliminate poverty and environmental destruction. Is that enough? I think we can tell for certain the answer is “no.” Look at the rich countries of Europe; look at America. They are free from material suffering, yet still they are suffering. Still, they don’t have peace. So what is needed on top of that is inner peace, inner joy,…
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…the day eating pancakes together and get caught up in the outbreak. Karin Lane (Mirielle Enos) anxiously awaits word from her husband, Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), as he jets around the world seeking the cause of the epidemic. Of course, Lane, a former United Nations investigator becomes the key to global salvation. The disruption of this white middle class family’s life appears alongside global collapse, and I am unsure which the film wants us to car…
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…vailable options for religious/spiritual seekers. So if you take Kaya’s explanations and combine them with my claims, you have a situation where religious organizations—particularly older forms—are operating in a world that increasing numbers of people are not interested in, and are simply irrelevant to their lives. So in response to Peter’s question about how to “fix” the issues pushing people out of religious institutions, they are of a piece—wh…
Read More…erence talk shaming homosexuality. “I have a brother who said to me on the phone last Christmas, ‘Elder Packer says God does not make gays. This is your choice.’ And then he used some very hurtful language with me,” Jahn relates. “I had to hang up on him. But he feels he has been given permission to speak this way by the prophet.” “Even a simple phrase uttered by a General Authority can give Church members broad permission to look down on, discrim…
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…ghlighted the irony of a childless man scolding those without children. My phone went wild with calls from animal lovers, queer friends and childless Catholic couples as well. An estimated 1.1 billion people belong to the Roman Catholic church. But even many of those who aren’t Catholic consider the pope’s words influential or have concerns about how his words can affect cultures, laws, and policies. I understood why they were dismayed. As an inte…
Read More…blin that being gay “is one of the greatest gives that God gave me.” Netherlands: Lawsuit over job discrimination based on ‘God’s word’ A 25-year-old student is planning to sue a garden and farming supply center that rejected him for an internship when it discovered by looking at his Facebook page that he is gay, according to Island Times. Bas van der Meer had been through two interviews with the company, A. Th. De Boer, when he received an email…
Read More…e told her he had gone to a black Baptist church once because the Ku Klux Klan taught that blacks had no souls. He wanted to see for himself. “The hairs stood up on my arms,” he told the woman, “because in that moment, I realized the Klan was wrong.” “Wrong” would be an understatement, but it was something. He began to make it a custom to stay after class and talk to me, giving me some weird tracts and finally asking me, straight out (as it were):…
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