Religion Dispatches
…reacher William Miller proclaimed that Jesus would return between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844. When Christ did not appear, Miller and uncovered a mistake in his reasoning and offered a revised date: October 22, 1844. It became known as The Great Disappointment. Such are the risks of prophesying a specific date. Since their emergence in the 1950s, UFO-religions have also shown an apocalyptic bent, a tendency fueled by the threat of nuclear a…
Read More…bled the growing anti-choice contingent in the party. Stupak was elected in 1992 — before anti-choicers were explicitly sought out by the party leadership. According to the Times piece, “In the primary, he beat a candidate who supported abortion rights. But when he tried to hire Democratic political consultants for the general election, they refused — with expletives, he says — to work for a candidate with his views.” How times changed. Why? Relig…
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…ntologists, though the church’s war with the media continued throughout the 1980s and ’90s. A pivotal moment came in 1991 with the publication of Richard Behar’s scathing cover story on the Church of Scientology for Time magazine. With the unapologetic title, “The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power,” Behar’s article described the church as primarily a vicious, manipulative, money-driven “racket” that operates in a “mafia-like manner” even as it hide…
Read More…der the guise of multi-cultural education. The black mass was cancelled and 1500 Catholics marched on Harvard Square. Conservatives have constructed a narrative of the event as a righteous defeat of the forces of evil. This narrative has inspired others to mobilize against self-declared Satanists 35-year-old Adam Daniels of Oklahoma City has been a leader for a string of short-lived Satanic groups including The Church of the IV Majesties and most…
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…about 6 years. And that’s when we started the Fellowship, which happened in 1999. It’s gone fast. Yes, all of a sudden we had 15, and then 20 and then 30. Like I said, we’re not unique. We’re just the place that left the light on for everybody else. The truth is we just needed to gather them. Because the same spirit of God that moved us to do this is the same spirit of God that has moved people to this all over this country and world. New theologi…
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Julia Duin, religion writer for the Washington Times in a column on March 12 attempts to rekindle the dying embers of the 2004 election campaign debate about denying communion to politicians who disagree with the Vatican’s position on abortion. Duin speculates about the fate of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius soon to take up residence in the Diocese of Washington DC as HHS secretary. Sebelius a pro-choice Catholic has had the misfortune of livi…
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…, to a large extent, unmapped: the terra incognita in our skulls. Over the phone, Eagleman spoke with The Cubit about traumatic brain injuries, the idea of possibilianism, and the language we use to describe our brains. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. In The Brain, you do a good job of depicting the fragility of our experience of reality. Am I right to be a little scared by this instability? [Laughs] Well, you know, it’s one…
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…s issued a warning to parents over the film. In Russia, it has been given a 16+ rating and, most recently, it has also been pulled from Kuwaiti cinemas. Honduras: Trans activist runs for seat in Central American Parliament A transgender activist is running for a seat in the Central American Parliament; she won enough votes in the March 12 primary to qualify for the general election. More from the Washington Blade: The Central American Parliament,…
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…religiously-motivated pogroms afterwards. A few weeks ago, I spoke on the phone with a leader of New York City’s Bangladeshi Hindu community, who was extremely resistant to making the connection between the persecution of his fellow Hindus in Bangladesh and the persecution of Muslims in India. He insisted, “Please don’t tell me about India. I only want to focus on my people, Hindus in Bangladesh.” I suggested that there was folly in focusing on t…
Read More…n Paul II, Pope Benedict sent the following text message to Italian mobile phone users: “Let us go forth in the joy of the risen Lord and trusting in his permanent help.” JPII had been texting Italians with a “thought of the day” while he was still alive, so Benedict was simply carrying on this tradition. Pope Benedict has more recently used text messaging to communicate with attendees throughout this year’s World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia. H…
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