Religion Dispatches
…ns to condone violence. The issue is not so clear with Piss Christ. The irony is that once we work through the initial shock value of Piss Christ, the image is, in many ways, profoundly Christian, a point that is completely lost in the simplistic and literalistic responses of its vocal detractors. According to The Guardian, Serrano himself has claimed that the photograph should be taken as criticism of the “billion-dollar Christ-for-profit industr…
Read More…versized baseball cap on his head, who says he was watching the news about Egypt, and I had to suppress a desire to leave the restaurant. But, again, surprise. He said, “Did you know they’re shooting rubber bullets at people over there? And you know who made those rubber bullets?” I do, of course, but I don’t say anything. “We did!” he exclaims. He shakes his head. SMH style, although I imagine he has no idea what that means. As I nod in recogniti…
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…[shariah] offered the most liberal and humane legal principles available anywhere in the world.” How can Feldman’s statement—which is true!—be reconciled with the case of Mubarak Bala? By examining the facts. The Arabic word shariah doesn’t have one fixed meaning. It literally means “the path to the watering place.” In religious terms, it means “the righteous path.” To Muslims, it means the “way of God.” But what is the way of God? Early Muslims…
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…at we know via modern astronomy, some of those stars might not even exist anymore since their light takes so many years to reach us. What is thought to be natural is nothing of the sort. III. Grief The more frustrating dimension of reviewers’ obsessions with the genitals and drills and grindstones of the film (for which von Trier shares much of the blame) is that they stop talking about what begins as the great triad of “pain,” “grief,” and “despa…
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…
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…This is, to me, all of Tony Robbins’ message. I think the brilliance of Tony Robbins is he never actually answers any of your questions, he just throws it back to you with his mantra: your self has power, and it will give you the answers, you just have to find them. Self-discovery, here, is assumed to be inherently good—you’re not expected to look inside and discover evil. Doesn’t this encourage people to ignore the ways that their actions might…
Read More…ior asking its members for their time and their money and their votes to deny other people marriage?” Her two-minute video made the website, then the local news in Salt Lake City, and within days an official at LDS Church headquarters placed a concerned phone call to Melanie S.’s local clergy. Three times her bishop met with Melanie to discuss the video. Because she had affiliated with “Mormons for Marriage,” he questioned whether or not Melanie a…
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…acity to withstand the havoc wreaked by disasters, natural or otherwise. Many have begun to criticize the lack of coverage or attention to the floods in Louisiana. These are 1,000-year floods, covering an area larger than Delaware, affecting more than 40,000 homes. This is sure to be an ongoing disaster—triggering transportation, housing, public health, and financial crises. So, many ask: “Where is the media coverage, the public awareness, the nat…
Read MoreI just got off the phone with Nancy Ratzen, president of the National Council of Jewish Women, who said the group would be issuing an endorsement of Elana Kagan later today. Ratzen, who said the NCJW has, since 2001, “engaged consistently on reviewing and taking positions and educating and mobilizing progressive Jewish community” on judicial nominations, said that the group would be working hard to see Kagan confirmed. “We think she has an except…
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…ocumented, the week since the election has been characterized by an rising number of attacks on women and minorities. Whether cavalier attitudes or crippling dread, the varied responses of American Muslims to Trump’s election reflect our political diversity, once again driving home the point that we are anything but homogeneous. As we move into a second week of digesting the reality of President Trump, it is too early to know exactly what American…
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