Religion Dispatches
…r, unnecessary, and unacceptable spectacle of a hanging captured on a cell phone. If there is something that should distinguish us from those dictators who have corrupted our world, it must be here. In humility before death. In appreciation of our common humanity. In the sense that the universe is infused with a law and a purpose that makes our lives and hopes sacred, and which, from time to time, turns against those who offend it, to remind us th…
Read More
…people to this moment in time. Some players will have seen the shaky cell phone videos of Qaddafi’s discovery now circulating, with all the bumps and blurs you’d expect from someone filming a violent attack close up. The horrifying footage shows the dictator’s last moments, complete with flashes of faces splattered with blood, punctuated with off-screen shouts of “Allahu Akbar,” and revealing glimpses of Qaddafi’s pummeled and resigned visage blu…
Read More…” The Washington Post reports this morning that Democratic Senators, on a phone call yesterday with White House senior advisor David Plouffe, argued against adopting the Bishops’ position. My source says it’s “not a done deal” yet, but expected action from the White House within a week. UPDATE: Another womens’ rights advocate tells me that she has “no reason to think” that the Obama administration feels it “owes” the Bishops for health care refo…
Read More
…e prohibition on cell phones, because Makana’s guitar is tuned with a smartphone app. Or, reporters are interested in how Obama, his guests, and security detail responded—or didn’t, as it turned out. But this misses the heart of the story, as Makana’s set at the APEC dinner was less dissenting performance than performative utterance—the songs he played, the protest t-shirt hidden beneath the complaint dinner musician’s suit, and the secretive cell…
Read More…d to hide his failings. Ginger White’s claims, backed up with receipts and phone records, are compelling. Besides, who would willingly admit that they had sex with THEHermanCain, besides Gloria, his wife, unless it was true. I sincerely hope that Cain gets a clue this week and drops out of the race for the sake of his family. I could care less who he decides to 999. Allowing his private dalliances to become a public spectacle while pretending to t…
Read More…sday, to every registered Republican or non-aligned Iowa voter with a cell phone on record. . . . The video’s star is Molotov Mitchell, whom Cary K. Gordon, president of PeaceMakers Institute and pastor of Sioux City’s Cornerstone Church, calls “the guerilla warrior of Judeo-Christian political commentary.” Mitchell is an edgy independent filmmaker whose Illuminati Pictures delivers something akin to an animated political cartoon weekly at WorldN…
Read More
…r every single baby legally aborted God will require the blood of the same number of people, which is between 30-50 million Americans!” he writes. (NB: this “pro-life” position bears more of a relationship to a book on numerology than the Book of Numbers.) Anti-marriage equality crusader Bishop Harry Jackson, who is African American, urges readers to vote for Romney “as a statement of Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream.” While King was sitting in the…
Read More
…arent-teacher conference. You were just so well-meaning and earnest, so exhaustingly sincere. Goodness and mercy. Who wouldn’t want to be surrounded by plenty of that all the days of her life? Oh, that would be me. I apparently had my fill. Do you want to hear about it? You want to talk? I imagine you sitting down across from me, and I must say I see it in your eyes—you feel betrayed. You trusted me and I abandoned you, the church, and everything…
Read More
…f women’s leadership in mainline Christian denominations—and if our recent phone conversation is any indication, she has her work cut out for her. She must assume the bishop’s role of watcher or overseer; she must surpass her male colleagues in competence to show that a woman, in her case an Hispanic woman, can be a good bishop; and, she must find a way to live out her own unique commitments with integrity. As was said of the legendary Ginger Roge…
Read More…g, highly observant LDS father. My friend described a brief, tension-laden phone call between father and son, wedged into a few free minutes after a church meeting. “Now, I’m going to serve my family,” said the father, bringing the call to a close. “Because that’s what I do.” And Mitt Romney is going to serve his country. Because that’s what he does. Like it or not. That joyless put-your-shoulder-to-the-wheel tenacity is setting the tone for the G…
Read More