Religion Dispatches
…lity courses, yoga courses, or zen courses, but none of those things would free the person to be like a child of God. Only the Holy Spirit, according to Francis, has the power to break the hardness of the heart and make it docile toward God and free to love. Given the frequent Catholic and evangelical yogaphobic moments in recent history, I asked myself if the Pope’s remarks were yogaphobic, but I concluded that yogaphobia did not appear to be at…
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…re, he argues, nothing is sacred): No ideas, religious or otherwise, get a free pass. The notion that some idea or concept is beyond question or attack is anathema to the entire scientific undertaking. This commitment to open questioning is deeply tied to the fact that science is an atheistic enterprise. Krauss is right to draw the connection between science and the concept of a secular public square. Both emerged around the same period in history…
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…nts are correct about what the law and Constitution require—their right to free expression was violated—and that Wendler and Kacsmaryk are wrong. After providing an overview and history of freedom of religion and the separation of church and state in US constitutional law, Seidel moved on to discuss the Christian Right’s abuse of these key concepts. He noted how the weaponization of “religious freedom” as a bludgeon for Christian supremacy, in tan…
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…legitimately weaponized and used to harm less powerful people? Sure. I’m a freelance writer and a trans woman with no trust fund to my name, and this is something I unfortunately know from personal experience. But it’s a leap to conclude from the inappropriate weaponization of “cancel culture” that all opinions deserve access to all platforms. Nor is this a reason to stick our heads in the sand, ostrich-like, and ignore the very real ways in which…
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…undamentalism.” That encyclical included clear and direct criticism of the free-market fundamentalism at the heart of attempts to dismantle financial reform: The conviction that the economy must be autonomous, that it must be shielded from ‘influences’ of a moral character, has led man to abuse the economic process in a thoroughly destructive way. In the long term, these convictions have led to economic, social and political systems that trample u…
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…d were saddened and disturbed by Mister Rogers’s apparent unwillingness to free Shamu from the confines of the Sea World tank. The letters are very touching in the care they express for a killer whale in need of the freedom afforded by a vast ocean. They are also moving in the sense that they are the product of Rogers’s own creation—his handwork in encouraging children to express their feelings, including those of anger and disappointment. The let…
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…I swiped from the visitors’ table. (Catholics churches should step up the free swag factor.) Now driving through Northeast Los Angeles, I pass about half a dozen churches of sundry shapes and sizes. Some are storefront establishments, others steepled behemoths you can spot from the 110. Some are older and rooted, like the Iglesia Pentecostal Esmirna, others newer, like the recently planted Gold Line Church, named for the metro light rail that run…
Read More…n’t get anywhere on time, except for sundown, when it’s a kind of punctual free-for-all. But then there’s that one guy who, despite being just as capable of hearing the adhan (call to prayer) as you or I still breaks his fast (iftar literally means ‘breakfast’) early. Doesn’t he have that cheesy adhan alarm clock that they used to sell at ISNA, which for those who don’t know is, along with Star Trek conventions, the world’s largest gathering of vi…
Read More…t Amendment has any meaning, it is that the government cannot suppress the free speech because it — or anyone else — disagrees with the speech.” The Thomas More Law Center has pledged to file a suit on Jones’ behalf. By the way, I’ve seen TMLC in action. Its lawyers defended the Dover school board in Kitzmiller v Dover. If Jones has any brains at all – and I’m not saying he does – he’ll get on the phone to the ACLU right now, begging its attorneys…
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…issues, particularly abortion, with equally strong support for Republican free-market economic policies. Many of these conservative Catholics, especially those in the public eye, have become more outspoken in asserting a “gospel-centered”, biblical morality in the public square as central to their Catholicism. This is a departure from more conventional notions of Catholicism that focus on private religious practice and charitable works. Rubio’s a…
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