Religion Dispatches
…to defend “traditional” marriage and defend “religious liberty,” which is code for defending the religious right’s ability to bully gay and lesbian people at will using God as their shield. But, wait, there’s more. Gingrich has hit the conservative Christian trifecta by sitting down with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board to affirm that opposition to marriage equality stating that there is a “big difference between saying that you’re to ha…
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…ot points out, philosophy in the ancient world was not so much a system or code as “a way of being.” Philosophy, in this sense, is enmeshed in a life-world. Writers from Marcus Aurelius to Francis Bacon to Ralph Waldo Emerson have conducted such experiments in living as spiritual exercise, a task that entailed writing as philosophic engagement. Philosophy in this mode, Hadot explains, is a continuous process, to be renewed in each instant—a practi…
Read More…54 had no legal ramifications: it was not a bill to change the state legal code, as was SB-1433. It also stipulated that the bill would not apply to in vitro fertilization. Well, if any legislators believed this would give them cover, they were mistaken. The pro-personhood folks made it known that a a representative would be bringing a procedural motion to force hearing on SB-1433. Oklahomans for Life sent this memo to house Republicans, stating t…
Read More…scholars had a list discussion about the merits of activism vis-à-vis the promotion process for most US academies. If you play too much of a role in the day-to-day lives of Muslims at every level—but especially where the majority abide, which is rank and file—then your credentials as an intellectual are questionable. For women, that is. For men there are no such constraints. So even if these three men did not approach matters of political office…
Read More…s with eloquence and power. The second is that “being like us” is indeed a code for race, that being like us involves being white and Protestant and thus if one is not white, but “merely” mixed, then one somehow can’t really be Christian. It is more than a little sad that mainline Christians are not speaking more forcefully and with outrage against either of these scarcely-veiled, noxious beliefs. And it is the apparent net of beliefs that may wel…
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…orse, bracingly in the secular present without regard to any kind of moral code, which doesn’t mean that, certainly in Claire’s situation, there haven’t been moments when she has faced up against.” As Season 3 wore on, even tiny glimmers of moral misgivings in Claire’s mind appeared to be driving a wedge in the Underwood’s strange union. “She definitely has an emotional center than can be empathic and sympathetic, moreso than Frank,” Foley continu…
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…me that Jewish homosexuals today are far less emotionally stressed by the code that ruled out the possibility of being both Jewish and gay. Even among some Orthodox Jewish communities the issue is being addressed—though not yet resolved. I love your notion of “layered ethnographies”—in which you add to prior ethnographies rather than amend them. So, the ethnography of CBST includes the first and second editions of your book as well as subsequent…
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…reply to my later email, I was directed to three local parishes in my zip code to find out about attending their listening sessions. A priest from one of the three I contacted replied courteously but had to report that the parish has nothing in place yet. He assured me that they would do whatever the diocese instructed. A recent survey by America magazine staff confirmed my suspicions that the process is off to a rocky start: “Of the 196 churches…
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…hing the sins of a lost city, some prescriptions in the Israelite holiness code, and the Apostle Paul on the consequences of pagan idolatry. Or so the passages read to me.) Calling out the numbers is not meant to start a conversation about what these biblical passages might mean—or about how different Christian communities have decided to determine the applied meaning of any verse in their version of the Bible. The verses are often cited in church…
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…? Why? In addition to Mitch Duneier’s Sidewalk, I would say Eli Anderson’s Code of the Street. It’s such a wonderful example of using the ethnographic method to dig beneath common stereotypes and reveal the social dynamics underlying a supposedly well-understood phenomenon. In his case, he’s looking at the situation of inner-city violence among young African American men. By carefully observing, listening, documenting, and then analyzing, he is ab…
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