Religion Dispatches
On the latest installment of my Bloggingheads program, I spoke with RD contributor Sarah Sentilles about her piece on Richard Mourdock’s comments on rape and abortion. We discussed what would happen if politicians were compelled to offer non-religious justifications for their policy positions; how prevalent the view that God controls everything is; and why invoking religion lets politicians off the hook. We also talked about how God’s will is inv…
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…nian activism using “biblically- and theologically-based principles.” This latest statement’s American context is important. Most authors are from major Protestant denominations such as the Episcopal, Presbyterian, and United Methodist churches. These Christian traditions have, in a remarkable break with centuries of hateful teachings, opposed both Christian hostility toward Judaism and polemics about Jews’ unfaithfulness to God. They also endorse…
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…accomplishes the “pray” portion of her title in Bali. Shetty is among the latest in a long line of “wise men from the East” who’ve found success in translating the “wisdom” from the East into the “language of the West” without the bothersome trappings of their particular cultural contexts. These “oriental monks” have traditionally accentuated their foreignness through their physical appearance—orange robes, “Eastern clothing,” long beards, etc.—a…
Read More…t kinds of programs they should create for the former slaves, based on the latest survey data. And the wilderness wouldn’t be made out of desert sand and sagebrush, but of Yoga studios, rock clubs, and intermarriage: all of the temptations of the American cultural marketplace. The leaders, on some level, would have long ago realized that they had to lead by following, or be left behind. If nothing else, this “spirituality” survey indicates that Je…
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…reinventions include a developmental guide or a spin-off sequel, while the latest includes an event tour (Pay by credit card or check!). To be clear then: McLaren is his own consumer trend. But his reinvention sells and, when consumed, produces fertile opportunities for insight. A ticket to the “Everything Must Change” tour is, somewhat oddly perhaps, a plunge into a pool of progressive partners. Multiethnic churches and urban ministries will play…
Read MoreRoss Douthat’s latest column offers proof of Godwin’s law in the headline—and goes downhill from there. And the headline (a sly reference to The Producers‘ “Springtime for Hitler”) isn’t even the worst thing in the article. To be fair, journalists don’t write their own headlines [Dan didn’t write this one, for example. –the eds]. Also, I should point out that Douthat’s first three paragraphs go off without him tripping over his own shoelaces. The…
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…on the Fox site are vowing to boycott Google in favor of Bing, Microsoft’s latest venture into the search engine business. They might want to rethink that move, too, since Microsoft was one of the first companies to include sexual orientation in its non-discrimination policies and actually offers “partial coverage for transgender surgery (effective in 2006) to its existing coverage of other transgender-specific health benefits.” In the words of Ho…
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…r not that things can be better, but that they can be different. What this latest economic crisis finally and undeniably reveals is that the deck has been stacked against the little guy for many years. We cannot keep going this way. An authentic word of hope for today, then, must be transformational. It must recognize that we will never be the same for having experienced this shock, so we might as well come out of it better people, more tightly kn…
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…suming house on 1530 Howell Mill Road that had been painted bright pink in promotion of rapper 2 Chainz’s latest album, “Pretty Girls Like Trap Music,” was whitewashed back to its original eggshell hue. For the past several weeks, the Pink Trap House installation had been a lot of things to different people. A quick search of the #PinkTrapHouse hashtag on Instagram shows it was a major tourist attraction to followers of 2 Chainz and lovers of trap…
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…ine Warren, has mastered the conceit of being “based on a true story.” The latest installment, The Devil Made Me Do It, is loosely based on the 1981 murder trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Johnson’s lawyer attempted to plead not guilty by virtue of demonic possession. The trial drew international attention as well as calls from movie producers and publishing agents. In fact, this is not the first film adaptation of the s…
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