Religion Dispatches
…htening: it reveals the true Western attitude to Islam, which is otherwise hidden behind positive, democratizing, and civilizing rhetoric. Thus, “The Innocence of Muslims” is not a movie. It represents a truth, symbolic of a broader spectrum of events and institutions, from drone strikes and Abu Ghraib to the Iraq War, which is taken to be evidence of a congenital Western intolerance of Islam. Certain events are foregrounded, and others are backgr…
Read More…Tobago, one of seven Caribbean nations that criminalises same-sex relationships.” While laws criminalizing homosexuality and barring LGBT people from entering the country are on the books, activists say they are not enforced. Hong Kong: Can Hong Kong follow Taiwan’s lead on marriage in spite of religious opposition? At the South China Morning Post, David Ogilvie asks whether Hong Kong can “follow Taiwan’s lead on same-sex marriage and live up to i…
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…sistance. There are a huge number of secular people who are interested in this type of thing. Even before this announcement was made, I’ve had people from across the United States come up and tell me how they desire community. They attend conferences and are able to interact with like-minded people. But then they return home to the struggles of being closeted or out atheists. These same people complimented me for addressing something deeper, and f…
Read More…y independence the first priority for the next administration, health care number two, and education number three. McCain says there’s no reason to prioritize among the three, that “we Americans” can tackle all three at once. And both men continued to promote the strengths of their own personality: McCain the long-time (maybe too long) maverick, versus Obama the thoughtful and unflappable newcomer. The first question, concerning the economy, prese…
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…the Staples Center. During this year’s All-Star game, one team wore Kobe’s number 24, while the other wore number 2, Gianna’s uniform number. The MVP award, given this year to Los Angeles Clippers’ star forward Kawhi Leonard, was renamed permanently for Kobe Bryant. Pregame and half-time shows centered on Kobe, his family, and his impact on the sport of basketball and society. The collective grief and bereavement displayed by fans and players alik…
Read More…g number of voters are interested in hearing them talk about their faith. While the number of Americans who believe it is important for members of Congress to have strong religious beliefs has remained steady since 2010—about 6-in-10, with even more significant majorities among Protestants and Catholics—this poll shows a growing number of Americans who want to hear candidates talk about their religion. On the Republican side, candidates could view…
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…formed as a result, to conservative traditionalism on the other side that thinks things went too far after Vatican II and we need more Latin chant and Catholic identity, and everything in between! It’s an interesting mix – and it’s ever been thus in terms of diversity of opinion.” Dreher, who is in his late forties, may also have a different idea of what religious withdrawal would look like, and why people would choose it, than a younger person wo…
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…symbol of that promise, he said, is the rainbow. For a brief moment, everything in this world disappeared. Nothing remained except for the joy and the mercy of that divine promise. Still, by the time I was a teenager, I had ventured to other churches to seek the varieties of Christian faith expressions. In high school, I lived with Jewish, Catholic, Unitarian Universalists. By the time of my first years in college, I was studying traditions from t…
Read More…e still the same. The clinic nurse I was shadowing that day attributed the high number, at least in part, to truck drivers sitting in their cabs in the gravel lot down the road waiting to clear customs. If we extrapolate that number out to the village as a whole and assume that over one-third of the women in this small town in rural Zambia are HIV-positive, the enormity of the HIV pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa becomes clearer. What intricate, inv…
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…much as it talks of relationship and responsibility for one another. With this frame as the overarching societal message, the hospital officials, while recognizing that Janice had no “right,” per se, to see her dying partner, the relational situation would trump any question of “rights.” Allowing Janice to see Lisa in her dying moments would be a matter of compassion—a matter of responsibility. It would be the “right” thing to do, if you will. Pol…
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