Religion Dispatches
…Becky Garrison Every wonder what some of today’s Christian leaders do on a day-to-day basis? We managed to get a hold of some of their to-do lists which should give you an idea of what they’re up to these days. Jim Wallis 1. Keep digging until hit common ground 2. Give Glenn Beck a noogie 3. Clean up donkey dung in Senate chambers 4. Register God to vote 5. Email Bono that just joined R(ED) Glenn Beck 1. Give Jim Wallis a wedgie 2. Order assclown…
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…church that I have the least in common with—is that it is a meal you can’t buy. In the world, you can buy fifty different kinds of artisanal bread and fancy vintage wine if you have the money. Or you can’t, if you don’t have the money. But at this table nobody can buy the bread and wine. It’s just given away. And so that is how we run the food pantry. You can’t buy it, you can’t earn it, you can’t deserve it. You make the point of not making peopl…
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…?” Shimkus doubled down a few days later when he compared “forcing” men to buy policies that cover prenatal care and contraceptives to “buy[ing] a cabin in Montana that you’re never going to use.” Now aside from the fact that “forcing” women to buy health insurance policies that cover prostate cancer is, in the bad vacation home analogy, like “buying a bungalow on the Jersey Shore that you are never going to use,” Shimkus is correct. Before the AC…
Read More…h, Madinah, Muzdalifah, and Mina. But besides that, I’ll give some of the day-by-day expectations, and experiences. Hopefully, the place names themselves will get sorted out. This is hajj. Some people, including locals who live in Saudi, come here only for these days; so whatever madness of number is simply multiplied. Okay, so on Sunday night, Mr. Mansour said, we should sleep in ihram. I first took this to mean, sleep in my day clothes, but act…
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…d it laid out bare for us at church (strictly non-denominational) every Sunday. Among the earliest lessons, from day six, in fact, was that nakedness is shameful and evil. Had not God himself invented durable clothing? He personally slew the animals to cover those bits that Paul called “our uncomely parts.” No one was to see them—and that included the owner—unless absolutely necessary. Showing your privates to a stranger was a sin. Now conservativ…
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…has its shaping event and, for ours, that was an impossibly beautiful Tuesday morning. September 11 put an end to the long 1990s when, as it is nearly inconceivable to imagine today, the biggest problem in our post-Communist, unipolar world seemed to be Monica Lewinsky. I had long planned to become a corporate lawyer. Two years later, I enrolled in law school only to leave within months. There were many reasons why, but among them was this: I cou…
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…ur audience. This oversize sample inadvertently gives away the credit card number of some eight-five million men, most of whom live in Egypt. ⬆ Earlier on this day, I saw a South Asian gentleman crossing an eight-lane highway while drinking a cup of tea out of a white ceramic mug. He took his time, pausing between lanes to let cars whiz by (at roughly 70 miles per hour) and took measured sips to pass the time, enjoying his hot and fresh caffeina…
Read More…ther commentary this week, DeBernardo considered themes from the pope’s Sunday homily to cardinals gathered in Rome, saying that the themes of reaching out to the marginalized, while not mentioning LGBT people by name, “ring true” to those who have suffered: While in other talks, Pope Francis has revealed that he does not support marriage equality, there was one section from his homily today, which could easily be applied to an argument in support…
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…us institutions and spiritual movements need money. I’ve paid for High Holiday tickets, passed the plate at church, and dropped bills into the basket at yoga class. But Osho’s opacity and its denial of the obvious (robes and shampoos, wine and brownies, books and videos were all moneymakers) bothered me. My fuming was worthless. Orientation still started 45 minutes late. My students and I, packed into a classroom with 20 other guests, were led thr…
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…ld, some of which have never been published before. I’m excited about it. It’s basically the demonological equivalent of a music nerd who wants to show you obscure tracts from their record collection. Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know about your book? If you buy the book, cut out the correct pages using the Fibonacci sequence, and lay them out on the floor in the shape of a pentagram, it will reveal a secret code allowing you t…
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