Religion Dispatches
…lling corporate-bureaucratic style of the twentieth-century LDS Church, to adapt to the new realities of the internet era, including greater openness among Mormons with doubts or concerns about controversial aspects of our history and doctrine. Excommunication is a nineteenth-century Mormon solution to twenty-first century Mormon problems. We were so hopeful it wouldn’t turn out this way. Maybe it still won’t. Maybe the highest profile excommunica…
Read More…May, conservative Catholics mobilized in response to an announcement of a Satanic black mass to be held at Harvard University. For some, the event was a smoking gun proving not only that Satanists hold black masses all over the country, but that elite institutions like Harvard actively attack Christianity under the guise of multi-cultural education. The black mass was cancelled and 1500 Catholics marched on Harvard Square. Conservatives have const…
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…ho dismiss the religious. And while I’ve admittedly rolled my eyes at proclamations of, “Prayer works!” when people experience what looks like arbitrary good luck, a letter from slain photojournalist James Foley to his alma mater, Marquette University, on the power of prayer made me reconsider my silent dismissal of the practice. Written during his 2011 captivity in Libya, the letter sheds light on how prayer functioned as an instrument of hope in…
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…Trumpism ever raging, the former president chose on Monday evening to once again show whose imagery and political ideas he finds most alluring. In a now-deleted 30-second video on his Truth Social platform, viewers were offered a glimpse into the United States during a second Trump administration. The video, which asks What happens after Donald Trump wins? offers future scenarios in the form of imaginary headlines intended to make Trumpist hearts…
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For all Il Papa’s social media encouragement the last few years, the Roman Catholic Church continues to struggle with digital ministry practice, particularly where new media intersects the Church’s medieval sacramental structure. In 2011, a new smartphone app aimed to support preparation for and the practice of confession ended up generating more confusion than contrition when a not particularly social design invited people to conclude that abso…
Read More…American warrior placed on top of the dome in 2002 is actually an idol of Baal erected by Freemasons). A letter writer expressed that the Satanic statue should be allowed because it would force the Illuminati to reveal their Luciferian plans to the world. But most callers essentially argued that the Ten Commandments should be allowed and the Satan monument forbidden because the framers of the Constitution founded the United States as an explicitly…
Read More…f the 9/11 attacks; and 3) the boss who thinks Unitarian Stella from accounting shouldn’t be using birth control and by gum he’s not going to pay for a policy that lets her do so without copay. Maybe the evidence that contraception improves women’s health does not enter into his analysis at all. Or maybe he was just charmed by his own rhetoric. I don’t know. I honestly have no idea how to respond to this. It’s one thing for people to oppose the co…
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…day off. I didn’t cook, but instead picked up something from my favorite Naan and Curry place. I didn’t venture out at night to the tarawih prayer. What’d you think, I was a saint? Nope, just a real person, attempting to do what is best. Yesterday what was best was to go easy on myself. As I get older with the fasting, I get more challenged by the routine. I don’t know why it took me so long to see it, but about four years ago, I realized one thi…
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…dio stations. They warned the world. That warning turned out to be a false alarm. No giant earthquake rippled across the surface of the earth, nor were any believers caught up in the clouds. Harold Camping, the octogenarian whose nightly Bible call-in show fomented doomsday mania, suffered a stroke soon afterward and mostly disappeared from sight. The press coverage, which had been intense in the weeks leading up to May 21, 2011, dwindled to nothi…
Read More…to the ballot Mormons who support marriage equality will be ready to act. Sara Long and Scott Holley are LDS Church members and founding members of Washington Mormons for Marriage Equality. I spoke with them this weekend about the campaign season ahead. Everyone has been bracing to see what role the LDS Church takes in each state-level ballot fight over marriage equality. Tell us about Washington. Scott Holley: My wife and I moved from Massachuset…
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