Religion Dispatches
…s Baldwin, whose thought and influence are still very much alive. Although best remembered for his novels and incisive cultural criticism, Baldwin spent several years as a teenage preacher in the historic Black wing of evangelicalism. Eventually deconverted by everything from Dostoevsky to the hypocrisy of other ministers, he would end up balancing distance from any church with affirmation of his essential belief in love, punctuating it all with c…
Read More…men’s exclusive access at designated times. I have a plan, and Allah knows best. I will do whatever the rest of the day might dictate to get as much access within the limited times as I can. I like my shaykh’s advice to seek as much of the nur or light of Muhammad (saw) as I can. My shaykh, and many Sufi teachers talk about Nur-Muhammad. Some go as far as to say the whole universe was created only after Nur-Muhammad. Or that the whole of the unive…
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…dn’t keep up that of older voters. Appropriately enough, Teen Vogue put it best: As expected, Sanders won big with the young voters who did show up, but the youth vote continues to be outnumbered by older voter turnout across the country. Even that might be somewhat generous. As USA Today notes, Sanders won a smaller share of the under-thirty demographic than he did in 2016 in several states. It’s worth noting this shift in a religion-and-politics…
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…The show opens with shots of goatee-sporting blonde Kody Brown wearing his best pin-striped suit and sitting at the wheel of his white Lexus convertible, then cuts to shots of Kody Brown bopping around under a big white tent at a wedding reception, encircled by a passel of blonde wives and blonde kids, as Brown’s voice-over intones: “My name is Kody Brown, and you’ve gotta meet my family. I like marriage. . . . And I’m a repeat offender.” What fol…
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…h a rabid culture warrior like Mike Pence in the #2 role. But probably the best evidence for somebody like this would be the ICE raids in Mississippi last week. Here’s Trump the authoritarian carrying out his promise to keep them safe—and the result is a terrorized, deflated community. People notice that kind of thing, especially when their church is called on to assist the victims. And it may never work! All the evidence indicates that there’s a…
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…g down from a high, and literally fell to the floor. “God, I have tried my best to ignore you and to do things my way,” he remembers praying. “I’m broken. I’m broken and in need of fixing.” A classic prodigal son story followed. Tchividjian recommitted himself to Christ, entered the seminary, became a minister. He married and had three children. He started the New City Presbyterian Church, a 450-member church in Coconut Creek. Tchividjian’s “class…
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…sumer capitalism that he knew so well, packaging and trademark and massive promotional campaigns. How has Crowell shaped the modern religious landscape? The Moody Bible Institute pioneered a means of generating a reputation of being a purveyor of pure religion. Today these business techniques are everywhere. The biggest churches in America have no denominational affiliation, and they are filled with respectable, middle-class people. This would not…
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…tudents crave the moral direction and frisson of transcendence that Bellah promoted. I do not know how this affected his teaching at Berkeley, although he was a much beloved and popular professor there for many years. Bellah’s colleague, Walter Capps, though, taught the nationally famous Viet Nam War course at University of California, Santa Barbara, which perhaps we could see as reflecting Bellah’s vision for the study of religion. Whatever else…
Read More…, you’d know there really is something to this transition. Apparently, the best response is one of surrender. Well, then again, I guess some people would rather go kicking and screaming, trying to resist. Anyway, as I said, my point is about gender and death in the Qur’an. Death is an equal-opportunity supervisor, so every soul will taste it. No special taste on the basis of gender. Thank you very much. We know from the Qur’an that there are two a…
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…ologist for the TED Talk set. And his new book, Focus, is a New York Times bestseller. But before any of that fame, Goleman was a hardcore Buddhist meditator—and remains one today. His early books were about the development of the contemplative path, and throughout his work has run the theme of how meditative practice, in secular or spiritual contexts, can lead to greater happiness and peace—and conversely, how the disconnects in our own minds can…
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