Religion Dispatches
…never be discovered embezzling money, enjoying kinky sex, or (The Da Vinci Code notwithstanding) fathering surprise children. It’s not necessary to label something a “cult” to understand the potential peril involved in looking to a living guru. However honest and virtuous that guru might be, she—like the rest of us—is susceptible to tripping and falling right up until the day she dies. What makes some folks willing and able to trust in a charismat…
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…t the Islamic State (or ISIS as it’s colloquially known) which argues that today’s jihad has little in common with earlier iterations of that phenomenon but does share certain features with far-right movements in the West, I approach the comparative question from a different angle. Setting aside the terrorism framework, which sidesteps crucial questions about the nature of militant organizations and their appeal at this historical juncture, I inst…
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…for most of Western history “belief” has meant nothing like what it means today. Today, when someone asks me if I believe in God, for example, they are asking if I assent to the proposed verity or the factual existence of God—and usually it is in reference to a very specific understanding of that God. Similarly, if I’m asked if I have “faith in Christ”, the question is whether I agree with the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth was divine, died o…
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…0s and 1950s, but they were prohibited from purchasing them by FHA policy. Today, those homes sell for $500,000 or $600,000. We now have a law, the Fair Housing Act, which says that African Americans are free to live anywhere they want. They can live in Levittown, they can live in the suburbs of St. Louis. But it’s not an effective remedy to tell people that they can now move to neighborhoods that have become unaffordable, when they, or their pare…
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…te Christian nationalist buzzwords actually achieves two things: first, it promotes classic GOP talking points of cutting back Social Security, fighting crime and strengthening border security; and second, it adds the unhinged culture war agenda of the far Right to the mix. Scott promotes a long list of drastic changes to the fabric of US society: in line with the Right’s attack on public education, schools will be forced to teach American excepti…
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…finition of “poor.” But if Harriet Tubman could lead hundreds of slaves to freedom with nothing but the North Star, moss on the trees, a pistol strapped to her leg and faith in her heart (despite lack of resources and epilepsy), then today we ought to be able to use the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, cell phones and our growing network of churches to educate the new Southern Electorate—black, white, Latino, Asian, gay, straight, labor, Christian, Je…
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…asure and marks the subservience of man to divine (or human) authority. We today are Abraham’s heirs, and re-enactors, of countless acts of circumscription. Today, as 2500 years ago, our own bodies are the instruments of authority, power, and control. Religious and political institutions of authority, usually backed up by violence, inscribe themselves on our genitals, our hairstyles, the ways in which we express our sexuality. We learn how to obey…
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…n I read Kamesh Sankaran’s “The Humbling of a Proud Hindu” in Christianity Today, which mixed a genuine spiritual journey with the idea that Christianity is superior to Hinduism. This sort of triumphalism among Christians—particularly converts—is nothing new, but it also hides the realities many Hindus living under Christian contexts face. For example, in southern India, where Sankaran (and my parents) hails from, many poor Hindus couldn’t receive…
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…n used to justify an attack on American sites overseas? The two principles—freedom of speech and protection of American diplomats—become entangled when the internet makes possible not just the distribution but the reemergence of visual production (a movie, a clip, a trailer) at a delicate moment; in this case, the anniversary of 9/11. Beyond all the issues that have been discussed, debated, and fine-tuned since the 9/11/12 tragedy in Benghazi, one…
Read More…which airs on TLC on January 16. The King James Bible turns 400 this year. Egyptian Muslims stood with their Coptic neighbors as a “human shield” against Islamist attacks. A “community healing” mass was held at St. Odiilia Church in Tucson, Arizona. It was the church where the 9-year-old shooting victim, Christina Green, had her first communion. A group of Trappist monks from Iowa built, engraved, and blessed a handmade casket for Green. The monks…
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