Religion Dispatches
…sopher-characters, may or may not amount to the right answers. Finding the code might give answers, but not faith. Faith exists only when there is still doubt; it is born and thrives with questions. What Lost is Finally About (no spoilers) Every time I have watched Lost over the past six seasons, John Donne’s seventeenth-century refrain has echoed in my head: “No man is an island, entire of itself/ every man is a piece of the continent, a part of…
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…ing in Europe as guest workers, Muslims have long since overextended their welcome. (Caldwell pays no mind to the hundreds of thousands of Muslims, from Senegal to Bengal, who fought for Britain and France in World War II, and so helped save Europe from itself.) Unanswered: Where are these Muslims to go? What are they to do? Caldwell hints that Muslims should convert to Christianity, or otherwise detach themselves from their spiritual identity, bu…
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…s the kind of Other that women usually must give up a lot more in order to welcome, I had two answers ready: First, childbearing isn’t THAT bad, and don’t you dare pathologize women’s bodies! (SPOILER ALERT: Turns out that childbirth sometimes isn’t that bad, but sometimes it is, and sometimes it’s REALLY DEADLY BAD. But that’s probably a different essay.) And second: Women, precisely because they’ve been an oppressed group, benefit when society a…
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…would have told him that the question of how Christianity moved to the right seems deliberately superficial. It avoids deeper and more painful issues, such as: What is it about Christianity that makes it so easily manipulated by authoritarians? Why do authoritarians feel so welcome within the religion? Could it be, heaven forfend, that there is something about Christianity that enables or encourages all of this? The day is coming when The Atlanti…
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…e statues were less about honoring the Civil War dead than they were about promoting 20th century white supremacy). In some ways, it’s not all that different from the ideas that sold people on the first Crusade back in the 11th century. And it’s not all that different from the story we tell ourselves today, every time we enter another country for their “own good.” Sure, we went into Iraq on the basis of false information about WMDs. But in the rhe…
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…State Department’s new initiative for an office of religious engagement is welcome. Over in the UK, I’ve been arguing for years that there needs to be better engagement between politics, religion, and religion research, and I founded the Westminster Faith Debates with former Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, to advance this very aim. We bring researchers, religious spokespeople and policy makers into dialogue. A state department which talks of “reli…
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…uture of the American project, a bit grace drops in like a sunbeam to restore my confidence. Today it was a few dozen people gathered on the main corner of our little city to protest the executive order, waving signs saying MUSLIMS WELCOME and JESUS WAS A REFUGEE. The darkness can only last so long before the light comes again. We’re going to be okay, I think. But I’m still going to call the ACLU and give them my congregants’ exact flight informat…
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…during a meeting at Penn Jillette’s house in 2010, the church proclaims to welcome all who love the smell of bacon (which can be turkey or vegetarian bacon for those of kosher sensibilities). Also, UCB members like donuts because they are holey as evidenced by Jillette’s Bacon and Donut party held ever year in Las Vegas as part of the Amazing Meeting (TAM). While the UCB consists primarily of skeptics and atheists, the nine commandments of bacon s…
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…ent. Because he held those roles, it meant that I should be respectful and welcome him when he came to my home and that I should accept callings (church service assignments) from him. I’d had other bishops I’d felt comfortable talking over personal or spiritual issues with. I learned, though, that probably Mitt was not that person. Not all bishops are alike in their pastoral or counseling abilities. Right. Later bishops treated me with respect. B…
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…ray Vote Stand Summit starts with a flourish as a full orchestra and choir welcomes attendees to the nation’s most influential Christian Right political conference once known as the Values Voter Summit. After a rousing welcome from Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, who mentions the anti-abortion Supreme Court Dobbs decision in his first sentence, the conference dives directly into the first panel: Abortion: Answering the Hard Questio…
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