Religion Dispatches
…styles, but I admire them both and try to emulate them—Carroll’s rigor in composition, the care and precision with which he writes, his dry wit, and Pinker’s air of genial intelligence, the way in which he explains complex subject matter clearly and with good humor. I admire especially Carroll’s Reading Human Nature and Pinker’s The Blank Slate. I also think any writer—literary, non-fiction, academic, whatever—should read Stephen King’s On Writin…
Read More
…years, other personal rules also fell by the wayside. I began signing off phone calls with Paz de Cristo (Peace of Christ), and exclaiming Graças a Deus (Thanks be to God) when celebrating life’s good fortunes. Though Jesus’ divinity remains a mystery to me, I became increasingly comfortable wishing to others the Peace I knew they’d found in Christ. More than once, I felt an all-too-spiritual tingle as I crescendo-ed in collective song. During ch…
Read More…eteorite? Bomb? End of the world? We were freaked out. No television, cell phone, internet service. There was no way to find out what happened. Later that night, in the Mayan village, the men gathered outside our hut, talking about it in hushed voices. Lacking any better answers, my husband offered the theory that perhaps it was from aliens. We learned the source of the explosion the next morning. At 8:59, the space shuttle, taking a detour due to…
Read More…ation work. Two years ago LDS Church leaders went on record in support of compassionate immigration reform. How has that impacted your work? I get phone calls from LDS people who would identify themselves as politically conservative, but they say, “There’s this guy I know . . . Can you help him? He’s a really good guy.” People need to remember that there are many “really good guys” out there waiting for immigration reform. People coming to the…
Read More
…sign it, you’re ultimately considered to be a non-Muslim. That is how they come up with a gauge. It starts to creep into everything. So now if I’m trying to open up a bank account, I’m doing a cell phone application, or anything, that statement is there, it has just gone into everything, every aspect of one’s life, it’s there. It’s ridiculous to have that, but nonetheless it’s real. The problems are not just administrative: Ahmadis have a “glass c…
Read More
…therefore much more supportive of it. When Notre Dame was finally able to come down off its culture-war high horse and look at the facts, they realized that there was a perfectly acceptable compromise that would, in its words, recognize “the plurality of religious and other convictions among its employees” while allowing the university to officially state that it’s not providing contraceptives. Notre Dame and other Catholic organizations were her…
Read More…ear in agreement with what we are doing. I may ask for your church’s name, phone number, and Web site to verify your stand. What I see as the sin at the heart of Grizzard and Jones’ actions—as well as at the heart of anyone who seeks to violently control the free will or belief of others—is lust. These men lust for control; and in their lust they objectify others, people they call “heretics” or “sinners.” Lust, in and of itself, is not a bad thing…
Read More
…tious of the presidential candidates on this issue, others are nonetheless coming to Davis’s defense. Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal, competing with Huckabee to be the second-tier presidential favorite among religious conservatives, issued more mild statements in support of Davis. Jindal told the Huffington Post that religious liberty “is an essential freedom and an essential right and I don’t think you give up this right by simply taking a job.” Cruz…
Read More…e degrees of borderland. In the homeland, or the heartland, you can wander comfortably without asking as many questions. Sure, the heartland is often but sparsely dotted with reflexive questions about identity and praxis. The borderlands are characterized by more self-doubt and more humility. But oh, so much less comfort … ! How ironic, we immigrants sigh to ourselves, that we can turn on the tap to clean water at whatever temperature we like, but…
Read More
…be I’m wrong, and this strategy call has some kind of secret weapon to overcome those divisions. Prayer and appeals to common values won’t do it, and unless they have something that will, the project is going exactly nowhere. Problem two is this: American self-segregation and gerrymandering are irreducibly a matter of race. It’s not a coincidence that the strongest and most firmly gerrymandered Republican seats are also overwhelmingly white. Add t…
Read More