Religion Dispatches
…Aqua-Buddha college pranks notwithstanding, Rand Paul embraces Buddhist notions of the interconnectedness of everything and the illusion of difference; “nothingness” is The Word. Thanks to my colleague Jon for sharing. The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c The Word – Nothingness www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive…
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…anding desire to lock up all the radicals. But what distinguishes the Obama-to-MAGA era of paranoid fantasy, in all its everyday, strip-mall suburbanness, is the omnipresence of the black body. The Obamas’ bodies, especially, were displayed, defaced, hung in effigy, photoshopped, and made fantasy. There were also those other black bodies, too many assembled to ignore any longer, because too many black bodies had been filmed being felled by too man…
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…el Life of Pi: I can well imagine an atheist’s last words: “White, white! L-L-Love! My God!”—and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, “Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain,” and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story. Atheists and theists make the pa…
Read More…While cable news outlets sometimes air nonsensical speculation or rumor-as-news, as was the case with the Boston Bombing, there’s a glaring failure of journalistic integrity when it comes to reporting on obscure religious groups. It’s tempting to believe that insular religious societies are treated by some as a “free pass” from engaging in good journalism. And the line between news, documentary, docudrama, and entertainment is frequently blurred…
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…ise on its axis. The center must shift if the human sciences are going to hold. In sum, I aim to move beyond deconstruction by radicalizing it or turning it inside out. So, the new book will articulate new methods for the social sciences by simultaneously radicalizing and moving past the postmodern turn….
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…ote the first-person language and Sunday School tone in a worksheet on the New Testament book of Hebrews: “Could the Old Law make anyone perfect? What made the old covenant obsolete? If we sin willfully, what no longer remains?” A reading utilized in another district explained why God had rejected the Jews (at least for now): It wasn’t the killing the Messiah that put the Jews at odds with God. After all He came to die for them. No. It’s that in k…
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…e moral comprehension, depicting them as monsters. I find the intellectual high-mindedness of the typical recent discussions of evil to be too restricted from historical responses and from the rich imaginative world that brings “evil” to life for people. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing? I envisioned the literate, curious non-academic reader (NYRB, NYT, Atlantic, etc.), but also I wanted to lay down some observations, principl…
Read More…fter the Justice Ministry classified it as a foreign agent. Guatemala: Anti-Equality ‘Christian Nationalist’ Sworn In As President; Lesbian Joins Congress Sandra Morán, a lesbian and the first openly LGBT person elected to Congress, was sworn in last week, reports the Washington Blade. Morán is a prominent feminist and advocate for indigenous people. On the same day, President Jimmy Morales, a comedian who ran as a “common man” candidate against o…
Read More…er center stage. In Georgia, Karen Handel and Nathan Deal are trying to out-pro-life each other in their runoff race for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. Deal is the more conservative of the two on abortion, but Handel gained an endorsement from Sarah Palin. An artist in the U.K. made a representation of Jesus out of 153 pieces of burnt toast. Another artist brings the King of Kings and the King of Pop together in his work. David LaChapelle’s lat…
Read More…ve God a name. In Islam, she is regarded as a founding matriarch, the great-great-great . . . grandmother of Mohammed. In all three traditions, Sarah is the supreme strategist, assertive and in charge of the campsite. In Judaism and Christianity, she is the matriarch, the mother of the chosen son. But if one studies God’s words, it becomes clear that God has marked both women as matriarchs. Indeed, Genesis pushes the idea of a double blessing. Isa…
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