Religion Dispatches
…damnation for things (like homosexuality) that millennials see as simply judgmental and unfair. If organized religion can’t renew itself from the inside, this new generation will switch to a new platform—even if they have to invent it for themselves….
Read More…, environmentalists, policy specialists, and a Vodou priestess gathered in New Orleans to discuss new models of water management in Southern Louisiana. The symposium, which coincided with the seventh annual Anba Dlo Halloween festival, is important for a city under the constant threat of flooding. (Anba Dlo is a Haitian creole term meaning “beneath the waters.”) But the symposium was also important moment for Afro-Caribbean religions in America. F…
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…ssed or cursed, saints or sinners. How churches square biblical teachings, American values and new economic realities will say a lot about the present changes and emergent trends. I’d start by looking into what’s being preached and what’s being practiced. Where are resources directed and who is deemed worthy of help? What questions are believers asking and what answers are religious leaders offering? Bottom line: How, what and why will individual…
Read More…well as folk practices, were repressed. After the revolution, hundreds of new churches and monasteries were erected and there was a scramble to recruit new priests. There was also a popular demand for services such as exorcism and priests like Corogeanu could become local heroes by taking claims of the demonic seriously. Corogeanu reportedly performed exorcisms in ways not approved by Church authorities and even accused his bishop of promoting Fr…
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…pansive naiveté. Sax notes that Roth was excoriated by the image-conscious American Jewish community when his work began to emerge. The “new Yiddishists,” who speak, at best, a pidgin version of the intimate old language, have been roundly embraced. The Jewish establishment, facing a crisis of attrition, is overjoyed that these young people chose to engage Jewishness in their work, and is happy to reward them with prizes and fellowships. There is…
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…e see clips of women with babies and women cooking, yes, but now we have a new addition: women using power tools and women as teachers in a classroom. So women aren’t confined to the kitchen alone—they’re called by God to be productive in many ways. But we learn soon enough that, according to Merkle, women must always have their focus on their home, their husbands, their children, and their community in order to embrace true femininity. While this…
Read More…. Congresswoman. He obsessed over her as though she was the main threat to American Jews, while barely mentioning the 11 American lives lost in an antisemitic terrorist attack in Pittsburgh or the fact that more hate crimes are committed against Jews than any other religious group in the U.S. This is an affront, and it should have been addressed by Congress. In fact, it’s more than an affront, it’s a deliberate attempt to skew our sense of reality…
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…vernment is being run by ‘‘perverted Satan-worshipers who insult the great American nation.” In Kenya, evangelical Bishop Mark Kariuki (who has direct links to Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice) challenged Kenyans to “know that the U.S. is not God.” And Kenya’s Deputy President, William Ruto, reportedly called on both Christians and Muslims in Kenya to fight against “dirty things,” saying, “Homosexuality is against the plan of Go…
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…end time with our families.” Trump-as-the-chosen-hand-of-God is relatively new theology, to be sure, though no doubt the theology leading Trump to tout Lindell as a Senate candidate in Minnesota. (Lindell wouldn’t be the first Quistian candidate from the Land of 10,000 Lakes.) But Lindell’s remarks point to another extensive thread in American religious history: the belief, contrary to every bit of scriptural evidence, that the Christian God only…
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…aghdad, and Camp Prosperity and Camp Union III, which are located near the new American Embassy in the Green Zone. There are more announcements of this sort to come. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is already saying we will need to keep some military forces in Iraq beyond December 2011, beyond simply protecting the embassy. It isn’t clear what the distinction between combat and non-combat will mean. All soldiers are trained to fight, which the Army…
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