Religion Dispatches
…shootings in 2009: that of Nidal Hasan, the US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 servicemen and women and wounded 29 at Fort Hood, Texas, and George Sodini, who killed 3 women and wounded 12 at a Pennsylvania fitness club. Both men had no friends, work issues, difficulties meeting women, and felt victimized—Sodini by women and Hasan by his fellow soldiers for being a Muslim. And both men intended to die. Sodini shot himself before he could be stoppe…
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…ester NY, who lost his daughter Jean, a flight attendant on board American Airlines Flight 11. Mr. Roger said he hoped the pope would say prayers for the place, for the people, and for his daughter Jean. Praying at a unlighted candle next to the prie-dieu Pope Benedict XVI used on his visit, the Pope offered those prayers silently while looking at the south pool of the memorial. The 9/11 site has become not just a memorial or a museum—it is a pilg…
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…(first as Uttaranchal) in 2000, the region has seen a massive rise in the number of visitors to the region, especially by the growing Indian middle class. Roads widened and hotels and visitor services grew exponentially. Building a new hotel or a restaurant by the side of the road felt like a smart investment—even when the road was near a river. Kedarnath saw the building of new cell phone towers, a railway reservation office, helicopter landing…
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…t difficult and dangerous prisoners to be locked in a secluded location for 10 days without speaking, meditating about 12 hours each day, guided by two teachers. There would be no guards with weapons, no prison officials allowed inside. “After it was over, we learned the prisoners had threatened to kill the teachers several times. But the teachers never told us. They just kept the session going,” she said. By day six, the turning point for most pe…
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…by Pentecostal students at Sharon Children’s Homes and Schools in February, 1948. Weary of what they felt was a “spiritual drought” in institutional Pentecostalism, they were in search of fresh spiritual experience. This is a driving aspect of NAR to this day. This anti-denominationalism led to accusations that the movement was taking members and churches out of institutional Pentecostalism. This was certainly a factor when the General Council of…
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…n Church in Charleston was burned to the ground by whites following a major 1822 slave uprising when it was discovered that long-time church member and class leader (and free person of color) Denmark Vesey had been preaching insurrection there. And now, in a distinctively American drama that never ends, the historic and brave Emanuel (“God with us”) African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston has been violated yet again, almost 200 years late…
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…m terrible at thinking of titles and was rather pleased with Moving by the Spirit. Having to come up with something else is hard! In any case, the idea of “moving,” and the Pentecostal version of this, which is what I mean by “moving by the Spirit,” serves as an organizing motif for the book. So, the current title gives you a reasonable idea of what it’s about. How do you feel about the cover? I love it! So many books about Pentecostalism have cov…
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…ine had come to a full stop, even though that was the line for people with reservations. (Reservations? Who knew?) We had gone for the show, not the protest. Being the kind of people who can neither climb poles or stand in long lines, or wait to get busted by the French riot police (they don’t seem to have read Thoreau on civil disobedience) we went across the street to the Petit Palais, where we enjoyed a wonderfully quirky permanent collection (…
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…ith these policies. Yes, it is one thing, once a child is born with Trisomy 18, to accept, and then care for her. Without reservation, I am in awe of those parents who do. But, why would one risk putting oneself in the position where a Trisomy 18 pregnancy would be statistically probable? Why would one choose, in effect, to take the risk of bringing a doomed child into the world? I am not arguing that such was the intention of Rick Santorum and hi…
Read More…the sky, the phone didn’t ring. I supported the war to come, with only the reservation of who held the keys of command. Still, the enemies of the good must be punished, must be denied the safety of even a parched rocky hillside in a poor land. In 2002 and 2003, the grim infection of another war became more and more certain. I did not support this war. It was wrong, and I said so from my pulpit. I paid the price: enraged members of the congregation…
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