Religion Dispatches
…hake. These devotional songs are also popular songs, as people continue to listen and chant them everywhere. Conclusion I think that the Fes Festival brings together an amazing group of musicians, and the space to demonstrate experimental pieces is fantastic. I would have loved to see them extend this concept and create a space for various artists to jam together. I think having the Baghdad-Jerusalem Ensemble in conversation with Dhafer Youssef, f…
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…r cultures that are essentially modern. In relationships between fundamentalist and non-fundamentalists, it seems to me that the challenge becomes translational—how do you talk across boundaries? I know you’ve written about this, but I frequently joke that the liberals are all one tradition in a sense, and it is easier to get them to talk to each other. But the real challenge is when you might try to get liberals and fundamentalists from the same…
Read More…neral minister of my own denomination, the United Church of Christ, on the list of signatories, along with Emerging Church authors Brian McLaren and Diana Butler Bass. Other usual suspects include Sojourners’ Jim Wallis, The Rev. Canon Peg Chemberlin, Incoming President of the National Council of Churches of Christ USA, Dr. Sharon E. Watkins, the General Minister and President of Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Cana…
Read More…yle will be performing for him. Organizers of the pope’s visit have a long list of items banned for pilgrims including gazebos, alcohol, and even vuvuzelas . Benedict will be welcomed by bus ads urging the pontiff to ordain women. Should we really support a musician named Sufjan? In Saudi Arabia, two rulings by Muslim authorities have created controversy. First, a cleric who urged grown men to drink breast milk has been removed from the radio airw…
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…nd charities and lives on the remaining 10 percent. Unlike flashy televangelists, he has no interest in large homes, yachts, cars; in fact, he won’t even go on television because, he has said, he wants to support local ministers, not compete with them. He has provided “purpose-driven” curricula and other materials to over 25,000 churches, and hundreds of thousands of pastors have attended seminars or conferences with him and other Saddleback Churc…
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…as crucified by the Jews,” back in 2001, nevertheless had an extraordinary list of accomplishments: He “started out as a newspaper and radio reporter, then worked as an aide to Colorado’s Republican senator, Gordon Allott, before plunging into politics,” James Ridgeway and Alicia Ng wrote of his background in a September 2006 interview with Weyrich that focused on his opposition to The Patriot Act. “He set up the Heritage Foundation by persuading…
Read More…y anti-gay and anti-abortion—was provided by a new media outfit called The Judeo-Christian View. Dr. O’Neill Dozier, the General Publisher of JCV, claims to have an initial print circulation of over 325,000 and an e-mail list of approximately 5,000,000. Dozier, a former National Football League player is the founding and current pastor of The Worldwide Christian Center, a non-denominational community church in Pompano Beach, Florida….
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…ices will contribute to a healthier public square and a more vibrant, pluralistic democracy in America. Are you hoping to just inform readers? Give them pleasure? Piss them off? If there are two groups I’m taking aim at, it’s the Christian Right that has distorted religion into a partisan agenda on the one hand and the raft of neo-atheist authors that are asserting—largely in (over)reaction to this first group—that “religion poisons everything…
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…ter woman for GOP politics, or will she be returned to the frozen tundra?* —- *There has been a surprisingly vibrant discussion surrounding the potential redundancy of the phrase ‘frozen tundra.’ The New York Times’ sports pages reported on Lake Superior State University’s eagerly awaited List of “Words Banished From the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness, 2003 edition,” which banished ‘frozen tundra’ for being redundant (…
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…et traders gyrate between exultation and despair as corner-office titans enlist the administration’s Objectivists to refill the trillion-dollar cookie jar they’d raided and stocked with imaginary cookies. Has anyone counted the dead in Iraq? Lapel pins, real Americans, water-boarding and what the frak is a credit-default swap anyway? A wise old Zen master boiled the Dharma down to this: Don’t deceive yourself, don’t make excuses and take responsib…
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