Religion Dispatches
…s right now. For one thing, I really did take this as a good thing, in the spirit of the early warning system. Since the time my friend said, you have to be invited by Allah to make the hajj; I have been in various states of preparation. I’ve been preparing to receive the invitation, preparing to recognize it when it is given, and preparing to accept it. I considered it a mandate to do whatever was necessary to put me in the right place for it all…
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…visit to the king. I think it works. Maybe because I think being laid low, spiritually, is part of the rebirth that as successful hajj is supposed to grant. We all carry a pretty heavy weight of ego-self which surrounds our being. This we must shed, like the skin of a snake, in order to don a new, purified version of the self. But then, one really has to buy into the whole ritual thing for that to happen. One of the distinguishing characteristics…
Read More…d “one-accord power” is when believers are in covenant with God, united in spirit and soul, with the power to reproduce (here Gothard appears to be referring to discipling, not sex). The believers must have no “competing affections” with their love for God, because “if we have any competing affections, God describes us as adulterers and adulteresses.” That power is broken by, well, the devil, who else? “One-accord power is extremely difficult to a…
Read More…wn travel or to pick up family and friends. The road signs had a little airplane logo to designate the way to the airport. I never got lost going, but always got lost trying to get back home. I used to say, there needs to be a sign with a little picture of my house to direct me. I knew how to get to the mountain but I forgot to make markers for getting back! Anyway, while wandering around until I found the road with that gate that led to our tent,…
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…ural) is that which curbs what we today might call “nature” in the name of spiritual discipline. Yes, Paul replaces physical circumcision with spiritual, but in doing so he creates a far more insidious apparatus of control. This is a nature of anti-nature. Ironic, then, that many of today’s anti-gay voices call homosexuality “unnatural” in a pseudo-scientific sense. They are wrong; Paul is right. Homosexuality is entirely too natural, found in ove…
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…ork made by an artist struggling with and through the embodied life of the spirit. David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) At the age of 37, David Wojnarowicz died from AIDS-related complications. He had spent much of his life in and around New York City, with significant travels throughout Latin America and Europe. Catholic schooling left him scarred, but it is simplistic to suggest he turned against religion. Instead, he sought a more primal, even childli…
Read More…ity is still dualistic, a synthesis of the physical body and an immaterial spirit or soul, but in recent years those advocating a monistic view of human nature have arisen, articulating a perspective they call “nonreductive physicalism.” This view, advocated by scholars like Fuller Seminary’s Nancey Murphy, recognizes the significance of the cognitive neurosciences that have cast doubt on philosophical and theological concepts of the soul, but arg…
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…me movements, such as Hospice care, have gone a long way toward fusing the spiritual and the medical in patient care. But Harrington intimates that the “mind,” “soul,” or “spirit” factor needs to become a more integral part of how we—as a culture—understand healing practices at large. She even goes so far as to say that religion (broadly interpreted) is what drove her interest in the history of science to begin with. She started out as an historia…
Read More…ing whatsoever is to be added to this, whether by “new revelations” of the Spirit or by the traditions of man.” [emphasis in the original] Certainly homeschoolers are not monolithic; in fact the earliest years of the movement were dominated by lefties who rejected public education for its stifling regimentation, favoring what they often referred to as unschooling. But by the beginning of the twenty-first century homeschooling has become an industr…
Read More…ack into serfdom, unemployment benefits expired, and in a bid to bring the spirit of peace and generosity back to Christmas, Republicans threatened to filibuster the START treaty until tax cuts for the upper 2% of wealthy Americans were made permanent. Oh, and like a maraschino cherry high atop a lollapalooza of suck, we find out from Wikileaks that the Obama administration—with GOP help—basically has quashed the investigation into torture by slow…
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