Religion Dispatches
…or in Schmitt’s technical sense uses a period of crisis to abrogate the existing constitutional norms in order to bring about “a condition whereby a constitution [which the sovereign] considers the true constitution will become possible.” This idea Schmit opposes to the commissarial dictator who sees him- or herself as a temporary measure designed to restore order, and then the normal constitutional order that predated the crisis. Clearly, in this…
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…ept, and indulge in, mystery as a part of life.” But what he’s raging against most of all is not authority—scientific, artistic, or religious—but the lack of interest his fellow earthlings show in the world they inhabit. Too many of us value neither curiosity nor imagination. It’s what makes him choose the fairy tale as a writing device, and the Talmud as a muse. “Long ago, in a land far, far away” allows him to say what he feels he has to about w…
Read More…important and pressing contemporary topics. (His Washington Post piece on St. Louis County municipalities and the poor is excellent too.) In chapter seven of his book, Balko observes that political impressions of police violence have everything to do with who orders it, who receives it, and why. If the standard conservative view in this instance holds that police need to be well-armed and vigilant when dealing with black suspects, previous instan…
Read More…o because God is with us.” Finally, a large panel, entitled “Called to Christ,” states: “Kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth and carrying out His works.” Sen. Obama has good tactical reasons for doing this. First, it reminds people he’s not Muslim. Second, it helps show he’s not an effete, liberal secularist. Third, it…
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…ne. So if the political aim of the Prize was to weigh in on Iraq or Afghanistan, as Limbaugh suggests, then it will likely have as little impact as the previous awards I mentioned. But what else might it be? The Nobel Peace Prize has also gone to other persons and other organizations—like Martin Luther King Jr. (1964), Mother Theresa (1979), “Doctors Without Borders” (1999). In these cases, and in many others, the Nobel Committee presumably wished…
Read More…that the U.S. Constitution is a divinely inspired document, that in the last days the Constitution will “hang like a thread,” and that a righteous remnant from the Rocky Mountains will save it. This complex of beliefs, often referred to as the “White Horse Prophecy,” originated in statements attributed to LDS Church founder Joseph Smith in 1843 but never canonized and yet reiterated time and time again over the last 167 years by Mormon leaders…
Read More…ious left,” said Leigh E. Schmidt, a historian at Washington University in St. Louis, and the editor, with Sally M. Promey, of the recent book American Religious Liberalism.“The idea was, surely there is something besides simply a secular left.” That something often does not look very churchlike. The Smith and Promey volume, which collects papers delivered at the Princeton and Yale conferences, includes essays on Bahaism among early-20th-century a…
Read More…debts the Chinese ceremonies owed to their Korean predecessor. What was most striking about the Seoul Opening Ceremonies was the way in which they artfully played with indigenous form, in ways that would clearly not be intelligible to a non-Korean viewing audience, then danced effortlessly back to the West — most notably with the cheerleaders, pom-poms and rock-n-roll theme songs with which their Ceremonies concluded. One of the first images in t…
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…her points, the Church claims that the Talmud incites Jewish violence against Christians, contains blasphemous teachings about God, and says terrible things about Christian holy figures. The language is terse and outraged: Jews claim “that this same Jesus suffers in hot excrement in hell because he mocked the words of the abovementioned sages,” begins charge 27; “They also claim that the Lord sinned” reads an incredulous charge 5. The Talmud reall…
Read More…away from long-suffering EuroAmerica, and focuses his gaze on the Middle East instead, a very different picture comes into view. In a year where religious tolerance and peaceful pluralism have been major papal themes, the Pope now declares that “Christians are the most oppressed and tormented minority” in present circumstances, worldwide. This is a stunning conclusion, and we have not one word about what metric Benedict has used to draw it. He con…
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