Religion Dispatches
…man.” One of the heretic hunters’ complaints about Word of Faith and other spirit-led charismatic movements like the New Apostolic Reformation is how they rely on extra-biblical revelations—the same complaint made about Mormonism. Judging from the reaction of the American Family Association—which itself has been criticized by co-religionists for its own deviations from WWJD—these Perry supporters are willing to put up with a bit of heresy in their…
Read More
…t leads to ecological ruin. It is possible that, in order to conserve this planet, we need to consecrate it, and perhaps one thing we could do towards this end is simply bear in mind the fact that all around us, our ancestors are trying to R.I.P. I see great potential in this morbid idealism because, for whatever reason, homo sapiens appear almost hard-wired to venerate things that are either invisible or no longer exist. From time immemorial, our…
Read More
…s. The argument I make in the aforementioned afterword is very much in the spirit of James’s “pragmatic” argument for believing in God. And I agree with James that our ordinary waking consciousness is in some ways arbitrary, and there may be alternative modes of consciousness that get us closer to the truth in certain realms. Six years ago I did a one-week silent meditation retreat and at the end of it my state of mind had been transformed. My per…
Read More…One test showed that subjects associated the words “ghost,” “paranormal,” “spirit,” “wizard,” “supernatural,” “magic,” and “mystical,” more frequently with black faces. In another test, subjects were shown two faces and forced to answer such questions as: “Which of these people has supernatural quickness that makes them capable of running faster than a fighter jet?” Here too, subjects were more likely to attribute superhuman powers to a black face…
Read More
…n from Berman. Bayoumi writes: Just as the Bible has the power to move the spirit in the slave narrative, so the Atheist Manifesto loaned to her by her boyfriend becomes Hirsi Ali’s path to emancipation. But the emancipation she details is not hers alone, for what would it matter if one Muslim gives up her faith? Hers is instead a broad prescription for all her co-religionists, and by the end of her narrative it is clear that she is lecturing to a…
Read More
…ce between saving lives and saving the economy. The road to this moral and spiritual cul-de-sac began with Trump’s declaration that the “cure cannot be worse than the disease.” Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and conservative radio host Glenn Beck quickly rallied behind the idea and boldly claimed that, as older Americans, they were willing to sacrifice their lives instead of the country. The moral outrage was swift and it seemed as if the i…
Read More
…ys and everywhere rules over the dense” (his italics). According to Dann, “spirit is the superior agent, so all activity that works directly with spiritual forces and beings is inherently magical.” With such a vague definition, it’s not surprising that the author sees Manhattan as swimming in magic. He starts his journey with George Washington’s 1789 inauguration at Federal Hall. Apparently the first president himself was a magical actor with his…
Read More
…recent Star Trek (and for that matter, Star Wars) movies. But in that same spirit, once again the villain is beaten mostly by well-placed brawn rather than anything more worthy of utopia. Am I asking too much? It is, after all, just a sci-fi show. Not really. At least in retrospect, 1991’s The Undiscovered Country was a political masterpiece for the end of the Cold War—a tale of reconciliation between two long-opposed societies, of old warriors le…
Read More…t we do to deliberate about such big problems. The line was offered in the spirit of can-do American industriousness, the notion that when we put our minds to a thing, we achieve it beyond the wildest expectations of a witnessing world. Such a line is neither Niebuhrian, nor necessarily very realistic. The vast majority of the President’s attention in this speech was focused on the economy, for obvious reasons. And he was trying to get back on mes…
Read More
…ious tradition which is shamanistic and animistic. In Hmong cosmology, the spiritual world and the material world are linked in complex ways, and the shaman works on behalf of the community to restore health, harmony, and to keep good relations with the ancestors (for an excellent documentary on a Hmong shaman from Appleton named Paja Thao see The Split Horn.) Hmong funerals, at which the entire community gathers to help the soul of the deceased p…
Read More