Religion Dispatches
…ion about the two books prior to this one I would have given you a laundry list of things I would have done differently. But Holy Ghosts was really a miracle for me in that it was the book where I found my true voice. This is my most personal writing to date. Though this book is a ghost story it is very much a memoir so the writing had to be personal. It’s a serious book, but anyone who knows me knows I’m a bit of a smartass and I make lots of mis…
Read More…ion reduction,” but Warren likens such rhetoric likening it to Schindler’s List: an attempt to save some lives but not end a “holocaust.” In the world of the “broader agenda” evangelicals, when liberals advocate for gay marriage, they’re stoking the culture wars; when a “broader agenda” evangelical crusades against it, he’s merely upholding biblical standards. In that tradition, Warren in October implored his followers to vote for Proposition 8 be…
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…f. These are the teachers of tomorrow’s clergy. A hymn at my the fundamentalist church of my childhood included the lyrics, “He [Jesus at the crucifixion] could have called 10,000 angels, instead He died alone for you and me.” He could have called 10,000 angels, but instead he called 10,000 religion scholars. (And let’s not start a Twelve Days of Christmas cascading laundry list here, or this essay will never end.) The numbers tell the story. The…
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…s own cards on the table: What is needed is neither the overweening rationalist atheism of a Dawkins nor the rarefied religious belief of an Eagleton but a theologically engaged atheism that resembles disappointed belief. Such atheism, only a semitone from faith, would be, like musical dissonance, the more acute for its proximity. It could give a brother’s account of belief, rather than treat it as some unwanted impoverished relative. It would be…
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…he block. Most had been there for hours, hoping to sign up for the present list. Millions of American families are struggling. One-quarter of families live below the poverty line or not far above it. More than a million families are at risk of losing their homes to foreclosure. Millions more carry debts that exceed their family net worth. Unemployment is rising and employers offering basic benefits like health care are shrinking. Nearly a quarter…
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…e nineteenth-century, of petroleum extraction and a peculiar form of revivalist, charismatic Christianity. Anderson’s film, which he directed and wrote for the screen (it’s very loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil!) is a morality tale, suggesting how the pursuit of oil, and resulting riches, corrupts the human psyche. Environmental Studies scholar Brian Black has written extensively on the impact of petroleum production and consumptio…
Read More…aid that the Bible only refers to God as “God,” Blue Letter Bible has this list of things that God is called in the Old Testament: Introduction El Shaddai (Lord God Almighty) El Elyon (The Most High God) Adonai (Lord, Master) Yahweh (Lord, Jehovah) Jehovah Nissi (The Lord My Banner) Jehovah-Raah (The Lord My Shepherd) Jehovah Rapha (The Lord That Heals) Jehovah Shammah (The Lord Is There) Jehovah Tsidkenu (The Lord Our Righteousness) Jehovah Mekod…
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…that prompted the readers to indulge me—the book stayed on the bestseller list for nineteen weeks. Sand explains this sharp split among his book’s Israeli readers by pointing to a widening gulf between Israeli’s public intellectuals, many of whom are critical of a strident nationalism based on Jewish ethnic solidarity, and his colleagues in the large history departments of Israeli universities, who are enmeshed in an academic system that separat…
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…ming catastrophe and/or the next civil war. A self-described “Constitutionalist Christian libertarian” and “religious separatist,” Rawles stokes fears of a “globalist” agenda and of “the Second Civil War… caused by the gulf between the right and left—or between the godly and the godless—or between the libertarians and the statists—or between the individualists and the collectivists.” (This “American Redoubt” just happens to overlap quite neatly wi…
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…e all the tragedies that occurred in the Soviet Union, it was a deeply moralistic society where each individual was expected to contribute to the common good and endure sacrifices for the benefit of future generations. The arts, the media, the education system, and the youth leagues all served to communicate a clear moral message that promoted altruism, social responsibility, and a strong work ethic. When the Soviet Union disintegrated, religion t…
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