Religion Dispatches
…stic terms. The current media terrain also makes religion much more entertaining than dogma and doctrine, pulpits and God. Who are the new arbiters of what counts as “real” religion, and what doesn’t? Where are the lines of authority in this new media landscape when it comes to framing stories for the public? Why take soccer seriously as a religious phenomenon? The rules of the game are changing as the media landscape transforms, which should make…
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…e statues were less about honoring the Civil War dead than they were about promoting 20th century white supremacy). In some ways, it’s not all that different from the ideas that sold people on the first Crusade back in the 11th century. And it’s not all that different from the story we tell ourselves today, every time we enter another country for their “own good.” Sure, we went into Iraq on the basis of false information about WMDs. But in the rhe…
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…d Chasing Dreams explains that today the myth of a Celtic Church attracts “New Agers, post-modernists, liberals, feminists, [and] environmentalists.” While it’s true that many of these groups’ tales of their own origins are mythic—as with any religion, denomination, or sect—the mythic has always served a purpose: to generate usable history, helpful fiction. While Arnold J. Toynbee in the second volume of his landmark A Study of History describes a…
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Ralph Reed’s new book, For God and Country: The Christian Case for Trump (published by Simon & Schuster in March 2020), doesn’t devote much energy to defending Trump’s moral character or articulating his role as an instrument chosen by God to save Christians. Instead, the notorious conservative lobbyist, evangelical apologist, and founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition doubles down on the toxic argument that Trump is an unlikely ally in the C…
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…drawing from Hugh Urban’s work here. He has suggested that tantra and the new age movement intersect where bodily, sexual, and material enjoyment are integrated into spiritual pursuits and that, simultaneously, this integration reflects an intersection between tantra and contemporary consumer culture. In other words, what the New Age movement shares with consumer culture can be found in tantra, the preeminent South Asian model of nondualism. In m…
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…ous or dogmatic reason. His words were valued in the same way as, say, the New Age ‘Law of Attraction’ (formerly known as New Thought): based on their supposedly demonstrable truth, not their religious authority. The devotion of Scientologists to Hubbard may have been weird, slavish, and naïve—but it wasn’t really religious. Or was it? Scientology was intentionally designed to comfort the afflicted, just like religion does. And, just like religion…
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…part. Don’t ever give in to—dare I say it—opening your heart. The presumed New York Times reader is similar, I think: basically secular, basically liberal, and basically intellectual. S/he probably drinks a lot of coffee, spends a good deal of money on food and clothing, and is, in essence, a good person. But anything New Agey or touchy-feely—in fact, anything more demanding than whining about neuroses on the couch of a ritzy psychotherapist—well,…
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…at is one of the biggest transformations that has occurred for you in this new era? My stage four cancer diagnosis came at the same time as this election. Everyone I knew was experiencing a lot of hopelessness. The lack of hope almost has an apocalyptic quality to it, and I thought a lot about that because I’m just trying to figure out the nature of hope for me if it doesn’t mean certainty. In this season of intense hopelessness, our personal conn…
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…the politics of individual board members “play no role” in its decisions. News of the new venue came in a Jan. 15 email to members of Congress. Heitkamp and fellow board member former Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-IL) provided members with new details on the event and location. (Hultgren is a longtime Family insider who has met with anti-LGBTQ+ leaders on trips paid for by The Family.) In their email, Heitkamp and Hultgren announced that the NPB Foundat…
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…that conversation. Danny Blinderman, a regional co-chair for J Street U’s New England region, charged in the New York Jewish Week that American Jewish communal leaders have failed to provide “meaningful support” for a two-state solution. “It is time for our leaders to rally around the cause of peace with at least as much fervor as they have around Israel’s latest war,” he wrote. Simone Zimmerman, a former president of the National Student Board o…
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