Religion Dispatches
…l. (Note: the filmmaker gets a few facts wrong about evolution and I don’t buy his assertion that Charles Darwin is the messiah of atheism. But I’m willing to grant him the artistic license to make his broader point.) Door To Door Atheists Bother Mormons – Watch more Funny Videos I have no doubt that many Christians, particularly fundamentalists and evangelicals, in this country believe they suffer stigma for their religious beliefs. It’s built in…
Read More…. Let me attempt to re-cap: 1. The AMC had a series of op-eds and a big ad buy. 2. The way the op-eds and website were argued implied that the AMC were good Muslims and the rest of the community was bad because of certain markers defined by these pieces. 3. The logical conclusion of such a construction is that there is a power-play involved. You will note that I never, in my piece, make categorical accusations. I cannot speak to the intentionality…
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…d especially its Muslims, are not entirely comfortable. Leadership at this point means finding a way out of this morass that does not cost us any more. I think the idea is good, but there is no vision. Show us that vision and get us all to buy into it. Right now a lot of people are fighting the fight against the vitriol this project has unleashed. Fighting against Islamophobia, fighting for the Constitution, is not the same as fighting for Park51….
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…st (or at least strongly suggest) that some paths are wrong. Money doesn’t buy happiness, after all, but some routes to happiness are only accessible to the rich. Our culture is materialist and consumerist, but we can’t draw insights from other cultures without typecasting them. We’re aware that the concept of authenticity is a cultural construction, yet most of us can’t quite escape its power—or refrain from condemning those who seem to. But with…
Read More…Who is the new leader of the religious right? Let’s just say, to question number one, no, OK? And now, post-Beckfest, the new Question is: is Glenn Beck the new leader of the religious right? As evidenced by the Black Robed Regiment, Beck is cultivating the support of religious right leaders who like his new God gig. After all, there have been worries along the way that the tea party — and possibly Beck as a de facto leader or at least inspirer o…
Read More…re like a white-collar job fair than an act of Islamophobia. Some shoppers buy kosher not for religious practice, but because they think it’s safer. In Poughkeepsie, New York, a local Jewish group has been given the okay to place a menorah on public property downtown—they just can’t use city resources to build it or light it. Clothing retailer and gatekeeper of what’s hip (or at least what was hip in the early 2000s), Abercrombie & Fitch, is being…
Read More…ent doesn’t define rights.” In other words, if the government tells you to buy insurance under the individual mandate, it’s not only infringing on your God-given rights, but exceeding its authority granted by God. (I’m not defending this argument, obviously, just explaining it. You can read more in this piece Julie and I wrote about how this argument is used to promote the idea of militias — one of the many ways the “government exceeds its God-giv…
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…er to don a new, purified version of the self. But then, one really has to buy into the whole ritual thing for that to happen. One of the distinguishing characteristics of humankind is evidence tracing back through the years, that we have always oriented ourselves towards something Sacred, Ultimate, or wholly (holy?) Other. In burial sites, from the wealthy Pharaohs to the poor desert nomad, this evidence is manifest in the form of elaborate relic…
Read More…will open with an “interfaith moment of silence.” Donald Trump offered to buy out one of the major investors in the Park51 project. The investors said thanks but no thanks. A North Carolina teenager whose family is part of the Church of Body Modification has run into trouble with her school’s dress code. The 14-year-old is looking at a ten day suspension if she returns to school wearing her prohibited nose ring. In Roswell, New Mexico, a group of…
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…gelists use sexuality in titles of books and preaching to get followers to buy their extended respectability sermons, packaged as sensual tomes like The Lady The Lover and her Lord, Foreplay: Sexual Healing for Spiritual Wholeness, or No More Sheets. Then emotional meetings are arranged so that everyone can “confess” and feel clean while the ‘leader” can be shown to be above reproach. The master at this is Donnie McClurkin, whose tearful testimoni…
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