Religion Dispatches
…plugged-in lifestyle doesn’t really get at the heart of the issue. I think the Amish, of all people, have it right. It’s not so much about what you as an individual are doing or not doing, as the effect technology has on the community: Why not make life easier and just put [a phone] in the house? “What would that lead to?” another Amish man asked me. “We don’t want to be the kind of people who will interrupt a conversation at home to answer a tel…
Read More…sterial comeback. On this week the 6,000 member Christ Universal Temple of Chicago named him interim senior pastor. Founded by the Rev. Johnnie Colemon over fifty years ago, Christ Universal is one of the largest and most influential New Thought churches in the country. Rooted in the metaphysical healing milieu of late 19th century America, New Thought faith blends Christian teachings with the power of positive thinking, creative personal power an…
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…Trump movement. In mid-March, a Trump rally at the University of Illinois-Chicago was disrupted by protestors, forcing its cancellation. As supporters left the arena through a ring of demonstrators, an angry and chaotic scene played out, resulting in an iconic photo of a Trump fan named Birgitt Peterson giving a Nazi salute. Both she and her husband insisted that they were responding to protesters doing the same, but protester Michael Joseph Garz…
Read More…slogans about immigration reform. On line I heard that parishes with large numbers of undocumented immigrants had received many tickets. No outside food or water, statues, gifts or selfie sticks were permitted. Despite 10,000 folding chairs, most of us would have no choice but to stand. Once in my appointed place behind the last row of seats, I found myself in a community of fellow pilgrims, lottery winners from local parishes, nearby colleges, an…
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…ualism is bad. Also, he notes but offers no explanation for the decreasing number of marriages in many countries. I am glad to see that in Section 34 he understands this basic fact of contemporary western culture: The ideal of marriage, marked by a commitment to exclusivity and stability, is swept aside whenever it proves inconvenient or tiresome. The fear of loneliness and the desire for stability and fidelity exist side by side with a growing fe…
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…w dozen yards of the riders and take pictures of the scene with their cell phone cameras. Traffic on College Avenue begins to pick up. “You’re protesting God!” a motorist hollers when he catches sight of one of the Soulforce banners. Finally a slender young man wearing a “CBC Soccer” jacket ventures all the way to the sidewalk. “I just kind of want to show them I care,” says Jonathan Jacobs, a junior at the college. Jacobs, whose family moved to C…
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…Bill Clinton was inaugurated as president, he grew up on the South Side of Chicago in the Chatham neighborhood. The son of an aide to Barack Obama and Chicago City Hall staffer to Rahm Emanuel, many of Chance’s formative years took place in a post-9/11 America rife with culture wars often centered around religion. Chance’s faith-filled rhetoric doesn’t jive with conventional wisdom about millennials when it comes to religion. Many of us have seen…
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…ho for 17 years led the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, Illinois, recently stepped down from his pulpit, following a summer of protest against the Gaza war with the left-wing Jewish Voice for Peace, on whose Rabbinical Council he serves. (Compared to J Street’s 800-plus-member Rabbinic Cabinet, JVP’s two-year-old Rabbinic Council has just 50.) Rosen told me he was not forced out, but that his decision to step down was driven by…
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…age. His 2012 book, The Buddha Walks into a Bar, has sold widely. Over the phone, I asked Rinzler why he and Burrows had chosen to establish the studio as a for-profit company. “We really wanted to make sure we had all the resources we need for supporting people who are trying meditation for the first time,” Rinzler explained. Because they’re a business, there’s more professionalism. The teachers they’ve hired show up on time, and, as Rinzler put…
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…ith others. The deceit comes when “Do You Believe?” equates its version of Chicago with real-world Chicago, and by extension, the real world in general. “Do You Believe?” hopes that its Christian viewers will come away thinking things like: all any problem really needs is a sincere, earnest Christian solution. In the United States, the filmmakers suggest, Christians are the only group of consequence being persecuted. Secular folks—or, really, any…
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