Religion Dispatches
…lag on his lapel either. It has been rumored that he secretly endorses the most vehement and separatist ideas of his former pastor. And so on. The real question behind all of these questions is what the relationship between religious belief and democratic politics ought to be. And how should the religiosity of a potential president factor in the electorate’s decision-making? Just beneath that question, it seems to me, is an implicit historical nar…
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…sexual licentiousness on the part of Hawaiians. (He was defended by Robert Louis Stevenson from claims of his unworthiness in 1890.) We have, of course, come to understand Hansen’s disease, and colonial attitudes towards indigenous peoples such as Hawaiians, (we hope) in new ways. So, too, have we many moved beyond the Protestant anti-Catholicism, to which some of the contemporary criticism of Father Damien has been attributed. Pope Paul VI recogn…
Read More…The “ex-gay” track record of “curing” gays and lesbians is so dismal that most of the organizations like Love in Action no longer promise heterosexuality to those “struggling” with homosexuality but instead promises help to “deal with temptations successfully when they arise.” But, perhaps the “ex-gay” movement is the perfect home for someone like Goldberg – who was revered on Wall Street as the “Abba Cadabra” magician who could muster wealth out…
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…r of protests, marches, and demonstrations for various progressive causes, most notably to slow the rush to war. These events were either homogenous and religious, or diverse and non-religious. Either way, a major source of power was missing. We could not find a way to tap into both the power of our diversity and the power of our religious convictions. We were left arguing on the basis of human rights or expediency or a vague notion of the common…
Read More…of interfaith dialogue about matters of common concern. In point of fact, most of the arguments I reviewed were “secular” arguments, for lack of a better term. I reviewed several of the main arguments marshaled from philosophical ethics and statistics in support of the death penalty. At far greater length, I reviewed US constitutional law concerning the death penalty, primarily by summarizing the most important Supreme Court cases since 1968. My…
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…voice to the implicit religious sentiments of those Games. Item Three: The most expensive ticket, and the hardest one to come by at the Modern Olympics, is a ticket to the Opening Ceremonies, where precisely nothing of athletic note happens at all. I would like to connect those three observations, with the Opening ceremonies of the XIXth Olympiad in mind. One of the little remarked aspects of the Modern Olympic Games is its explicit status as a re…
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…something I’ve worked hard to dispel. The nuns that I know are some of the most gracious, loving and funny human beings I have ever met. “The Sisterhood” portrays them as angry tyrants as they take the young women’s cell phones. REALITY: Nuns can’t wear makeup. “Would Jesus make me take my makeup off?” Francesca wails as Mother Mark tries to tell her that she needs to forego her beauty routine. Some of the nuns I know use plenty of makeup, they ow…
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…114.) One hundred and twelve years on this earth: it is a staggering, an almo*]}*st biblical, figure. Walter Breuning was born in 1896. This was the year of the first modern Olympics, held in Athens, Greece; he has lived to see them held in Beijing, China. Mr. Breuning was also born the same year that the US Supreme Court (in Plessy v. Ferguson) established the principle that “separate but equal” facilities were compatible with our Constitutional comm…
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…sador is, whether he or she is married, and how many children they have. Just last week, for instance, we learned that Fernando Felipe Sánchez Campos of Costa Rica is 36, married, with two children. And we learn that Gábor Győriványi of Hungary is 51, married, with four children. Yet there may be a more subtle rationale to this standard formula of diplomatic description than the simple recitation of facts. The arrival of new diplomats in Vatican C…
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…otive, since this will surely make the Frombork Cathedral a prominent tourist destination. The story also seems like it’s been taken from one of the more surreal moments in Hamlet: “Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well, Horatio.” Of course, what we in the audience know is that this half-mad Prince who’s just leapt into an open grave doesn’t know anything; he’s making the skull’s story up as he goes. As Sartre knew all too well, “the dead are prey to…
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