Religion Dispatches
…good cheer and industrious politicking will pay off. It is certainly that spirit that keeps him logging many miles on the campaign trail. What I find interesting about Henrichsen, along with his fellow Democratic Mormons, is a willingness to take the principles of their beliefs and apply them in a completely different way from where the Mormon mainstream is politically. Henrichsen is happy about the Affordable Health Care act, which definitely sq…
Read More
…thin the non-denominational, evangelical church. The first pertains to the spirit of apathy. Too many times I have witnessed firsthand the scorn, shame and rejection that comes when one of our own wanders or falls away. The phone calls stop, the texts cease, and the friendships end (scriptures such as Matthew 5:30; Matthew 18:15-17; and 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 are usually cited as reasons for “radical” acts of amputation). But how are we defining wha…
Read More…nized crime are artifacts of robust global capitalism. The movie’s important achievement to this viewer, one who has been to India many times, is the heroic spirit and devotion that Everyman Jamal displays as he confronts the game show of life….
Read More
…er so that I will make her male in order that she also may become a living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.” Celibacy, according to New Testament texts, was a way for the baptized to experience during their remaining time on earth the relinquishment of conventional gender roles that would be their reward in heaven. In this sense, celibacy was construed as androgyny with regard t…
Read More
…oing further than many younger evangelicals, Evans actively celebrates the spiritual journeys of LGBT Christians. A strong supporter of the Gay Christian Network, Evans no longer feels at home in conservative evangelical congregations. Such discomfort has contributed to religious disaffiliation among millennials (31 percent say that negative treatment of gays and lesbians may have led them to leave a childhood faith). In After the Baby Boomers, so…
Read More
…e is no political “enemy.” Just imagine what could happen if generosity of spirit displaced partisan politics. A hand on the shoulder, an expression of concern, a moment of shared laughter, a connection that transforms a reviled opponent into a co-worker for a different kind of politics: these are the alternatives that open up when citizens and politicians refuse to engage the political other as an enemy or “unruly mob.” Over the last several days…
Read More
…ill no doubt highlight the rescue. But, I have to wonder what impact their spiritual, biblical, ethical, and other insights might have brought to a worldwide spiritual experience that unfolded through the day on October 13—the Feast of Digital Ascension, if I had any say in such things—had more seen their ministries extending beyond the walls of churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples and into the waves of 1s and 0s that drew millions together…
Read More
…Communion not invited to attend. Both his isolation and his indefatigable spirit are palpable as he chats with folks outside the gate, visits an AIDS charity, and hangs out in a coffee shop, never able to get close enough to his fellow bishops to have the kind of conversations he had hoped for. Director Alston gives plenty of time to other voices; both those allied with Robinson and those who oppose the changes he is asking the church to make. On…
Read More
…ce of wars in several parts of the world, ecological crises throughout the planet, and severe economic injustice, it is morally embarrassing that the Vatican chooses to spend its time on such trivia. But given that the result is aimed at some of the very people whose lives are dedicated to peacemaking, Earth enhancement, and economic sharing, it is worth clarifying what is at stake. The crux of the matter, as it were, is that most of the nuns, lik…
Read More…they’ll work. We hope they’ll bring people to tears, to help them feel the Spirit. Because people are so hungry for stories. People need to feel something that lifts them a little. And not everyone can deliver. If you can, everyone is looking to you. If you can, you must. But this is not a story about Manti Te’o. This is not a story about the pressure to deliver, for your team, your community, for all of us regular people, time and time again. It…
Read More