Religion Dispatches
…nervous I could hardly sit still, but then they said: well, you need to renew this. And the next day, I went to the US embassy and applied for a new one, the one I have now. Here’s a tip, the fastest way to get a passport is to get one outside the US. Imagine that. But I digress… A friend of mine who lives in Madinah now once wrote a reminder on Facebook, that no one makes hajj except by invitation from Allah. When I saw that I put in my requisit…
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…experience earlier this month at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, as I waited to board a flight back home to Oslo. I was there on Aug. 14, 2016, when, after years of the “War on Terror,” one of North America’s most important international airports seized up as panicked reports of “multiple active shooters”—later discredited as false—swept through the terminals, sending passengers, law-enforcement, and airline workers scrambling…
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…ng together new gospels: this is another aspect of the New Age that is not new at all. New Science, Ancient Religion But the premise on which this text is built is new; one fascinating example of the complex interweaving of new scientific knowledge and ancient religious wisdom. The reason this book is called The Aquarian Gospel has to do with the (relatively) new modern science of astronomy. As Levi’s wife, Eva S. Dowling, explains in her introduc…
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…nes the status quo. That’s why I and so many others are working to build a new reality, a new possibility. It’s not easy; otherwise, it would have happened already. But I do believe it’s possible. I made the point in my review that some of the theological insights you bring to bear are powerful but not really new. Can you describe the theological work you tap into for the benefit of a wide audience? I worked hard to make the same point you make. E…
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…ssed by the breadth of Edwards’ intellectual interests and announce him to New Yorker readers as a “new evangelical.” Lesser journalists would take note of Edwards’ emphasis on natural science, on Newton’s Opticks, and herald a trend in American evangelicalism as Christianity remakes itself for the bold new world of the 18th century. And all these stories would be correct; indeed, they are, more or less, correct when applied to American evangelica…
Read More…t’s a different one. (Pauses) I gotta go back, see. (Pauses) Got all this stuff twirling around in my head. Specifically, what are you asking me, did I agree or not disagree (sic) with Obama?” I think we well know by now —after Cain’s ridiculous response to a question about Uzbekistan—that he knows nothing about foreign policy or the world for that matter. But really, could a guy who claims to be in sync with the Republican base not realize there…
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…stival. Uganda: Legislators Prepare Renewed Push for Anti-Gay Law Gay Star news reported on a renewed effort by anti-gay Ugandan legislators to re-pass the notorious Anti-Homosexuality Act, which was overturned by the courts on a procedural issue. It quotes Member of Parliament Latif Ssebaggala saying, “We want to ensure everybody that we have not backtracked. We are still on course and in fact we are more energized that our culture, our norms, ou…
Read More…kistani civilians in air strikes. Even within the original al Qaeda bin Laden has probably not played a central operational role for many years, though he remained an influential voice and symbol. The organization has cultivated a new set of charismatic leaders such as Abu Yahya al-Libi and ‘Atiyyatullah al-Libi who will likely serve as capable new voices of militancy for al Qaeda and others for some time to come—as long as the list of grievances…
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…esidency. Just last week a bloc of 54 African states attempted to oust the newly appointed U.N. LGBT monitor Vitit Muntarbhorn. The states introduced a resolution to do away with his new position that is expected to have nearly unanimous support from the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, whose member states have resisted upholding international human rights obligations. Several countries already have taken action, pulling out of the Internatio…
Read More…-charged anti-gay rhetoric. Robertson became a poster child for “religious freedom” campaigns—even though, unlike in Bundy’s case, the offending (to conservatives) “tyranny” was that of proponents of LGBT equality aimed to oppress his religious expression. The supposed persecutor was not the government, but a group of people that Robertson’s defenders claim are the false victims, the real victims being Christians whose beliefs allegedly are being…
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