Religion Dispatches
…,” he said. I suspect the advent of May 22, 2011 will be all the proof anyone needs, and it involves far fewer calculations. I had already seen this date predicted on a van parked in a shopping center parking lot near Columbia, South Carolina months ago, so I suppose I’m already behind in my preparations. I count myself among the scoffers of second coming date-setting since Jesus himself said we won’t know the date or the time of his return. Evans…
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…ths in Kathmandu’s Central Jail, where he shared a cell with 17 other prisoners. Nepal’s intensely complicated political heritage has been aptly described as a journey from “oligarchy, monarchy, to obstinately unstable democracy.” The formerly Hindu kingdom is now a secular state, but controversies about the role of religion in government persist and an interim constitution (in place since 2007) still prohibits proselytizing. Charles Mendies in Ka…
Read More…ment, Christianity Uncut, the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust and the Christian magazine Third Way. In addition, London Catholic Worker, the Society of Sacramental Socialists and Quaker groups have offered their support. A statement by the groups said: “As Christians, we stand alongside people of all religions who are resisting economic injustice with active nonviolence. The global economic system perpetuates the wealth of the few at the expense of the many….
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…, before the Hindu right had attempted to harass and revile him, Husain, then a mere 78, had presided over a retrospective at Delhi’s National Gallery of Modern Art. “Let history cut across me without me,” he declared. And now it has. First with his exile from India and then with his death in London, one of the most brilliant modern-day artists—at once experimental and affable, philosophical and playful, religious and secular—has passed to another…
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…lot, staple-gunning his Xeroxed screeds about the End of Days to every telephone pole in town. Who raptured these guys out of mass anonymity, into the beatitude of celebrity? Wasn’t it us, the true believers who knew every line of every song by heart, singing along as Ziggy implored, on the razor’s edge between yearning and taunting, Gimme your hands ‘cause you’re wonderful Gimme your hands ‘cause you’re wonderful In his marvelous exercise in amat…
Read More…tral memory, generations removed. Perhaps it is because it is another Anglophone metropole that is besieged by the insanity of hatred. Perhaps it is because it is the home of so much of Salman Rushdie’s fantasies; fantasies that do not exist because of his words, but a fantastical place in its own right that he seeks to describe. It is a place where here people sing the classic line from a Bollywood film “hindu, muslim, sikh, isaa’ii/sab ko mera s…
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…, dark-wood paneled pub with leaded windows. Formerly known by the borderline obscene name of “The Spread Eagle,” this is the oldest tavern on the river and it’s hard to go there and not imagine what it must have been like centuries before. Four centuries ago it was the favorite of a sea captain named Master Christopher Jones, who may have enjoyed a pint of bitter or a glass of sack on that same tide-beaten, mossy wooden deck that constitutes the…
Read More…, dark-wood paneled pub with leaded windows. Formerly known by the borderline obscene name of “The Spread Eagle,” this is the oldest tavern on the river and it’s hard to go there and not imagine what it must have been like centuries before. Four centuries ago it was the favorite of a sea captain named Master Christopher Jones, who may have enjoyed a pint of bitter or a glass of sack on that same tide-beaten, mossy wooden deck that constitutes the…
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…y Assembly. Our oldest person is over 80 and our youngest person is under one. Jones: My show “Taking Liberties” got investigated by the police during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival a few years ago for being deemed as too obscene. But here we’d like to have a service that appeals to the entire family. We realize we need to work on diversity. As a comic, you just want anyone who turns up. We don’t want just people who look just like us. Evans: We…
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…t publicly opposed marriage equality and declared she would boycott Qantas airline “where possible” to protest the company’s support for marriage equality. She also told a Christian radio station that “tennis is full of lesbians.” Navratilova has said that while Court was “an amazing tennis player,” she is also “a racist and a homophobe.” Court charged that money from America was behind the “conspiracy” against her. Myanmar: Prejudice and a bit of…
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