Religion Dispatches
…ation, apart from the first. That one is plain for all to see in the scary numbers given out by the Census Bureau earlier this month: big jumps in the number of Americans losing compensated work for working poverty or worse, and concomitant big jumps in the number of people losing health care coverage. The thing is—and labor market specialists all concur—these blows are no longer cyclical phenomena that will be reversed once “the economy” really s…
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…or in pain. Rather, such shame is a culturally conditioned reaction that reflects a confluence of religious and philosophical narratives that associate virtue with a body that’s under control—a body epitomized in the commercially-fabricated fantasy of physical perfection that pervades popular culture and that undergirds many mainstream medical and self-help discourses on health and healing. Second, the lines distinguishing “religious” from “secula…
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…lculations, one-third of evangelicals don’t vote, and when you factor this number against the number of votes needed to tip battleground states like Pennsylvania, there’s not much convincing that needs to be done to turn the election for Trump. It might seem like a small affair, until you realize that JD Vance was one of the speakers at the Courage Tour event in Pennsylvania. Predictably, demonic rhetoric underlies a lot of the Tour. From what I’v…
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…Counseler [sic] / Trained / Chi-Gong / Reiki / Shaman / Talk to Me.” Te’Devan travels from one festival to the next, and believes that the others who attend them are looking for meaning absent in materialist capitalism. He estimates that he talks to about a thousand people about his healing practices over the course of a festival like Bonnaroo, with maybe about three hundred approaching him for a substantive exchange. Sure enough, just as we end…
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…who sings the lyrics with a keening wail: Bakvio sk´yjaból vaknar sól úr dvala Svalar sér vio kalda dropa regnsins leikur sér vio heita loga eldsins Byr til regnboga A rough translation reads: Behind a vessel of clouds, A sun wakes up from its lethargy Refreshes itself with some little raindrops Plays with the hot flames of the fire Makes rainbows But we don’t know that at the time. In fact, it is unlikely that more than a handful of the most die…
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…t why such similarities exist. Many of the contributors are queer, which reflects the damage—or “nurtured insanity,” as Frank Schaeffer calls it in his foreword—fundamentalist Christianity has done to queer people just based on the number who have left. But it also demonstrates why Christian denominations that trot out their “welcoming and affirming” credentials may need to do more; they may want to spend some serious time listening to new members…
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…(see RD here, here, and here) at times to serve certain neoliberal, conservative, or nationalist agendas, there are a number of commitments that many of them claim to embrace. These include commitments to the following: religious and cultural pluralism, gender equity, racial and sexual diversity, environmental sustainability, scientific inquiry and historical-critical commentary, and a public space that guarantees both freedom of and from religio…
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…hetoric about yoga that thrives on nostalgia while also betraying a modern flavor of capitalism, all while profiting off of a fear of lost cultural norms tied to various forms of xenophobia, nationalism, patriarchy, Islamophobia, and homophobia. Modi works closely with a number of allies to wed yoga to right-wing causes. Yogi Adityanath (Hindu nationalist and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh) responded to some Muslim protests of Modi’s Internationa…
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…Rick Warren signed a statement of concern about global warming, joining a number of the new breed of evangelicals, much to the chagrin of the old guard like James Dobson. The press began to talk about the expanded agenda of the “new evangelicals,” an agenda not limited to the old shibboleths of abortion and opposition to gay marriage. The Five Non-Negotiable Issues Despite all the above, on a number of issues critical to women’s lives, he remains…
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…God and embraced evil, forsaking the prophets. “We have not obeyed your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers, and all the people of the land. O Lord, we are shamefaced, like our kings, our princes, and our fathers, for having sinned against you.” The Gospel reading from Luke drew upon the Sermon on the Plain, in which Jesus exhorts his disciples to “stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop cond…
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