Religion Dispatches
…cience—it changes its mind. So today is a funny kind of day, when we’re all supposed to celebrate you, a scientist, for being right (at least so far). I want to sing your praises, but not violate the spirit of your legacy with worship. So I’ve compromised with a tribute to your creationists. What would you do, Darwin? What Would Darwin Do? (He wouldn’t ask that question.)…
Read More…p as a kind of parallel system of okaying a food-provider according to the spirit of Judaism. These are tentative but welcome steps. The ancient rabbis taught that since the destruction of the Temple a Jew’s own table is his or her sacred altar, and should be subject to the same degree of sanctity. Kashrut is not meant to be a system of arbitrary food taboos, but a discipline that elevates the human drive to eat above the kind of desecrations Agri…
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…ed on” in Christ. The orthodoxy of a “Christian society” was the source of spiritual and social stability in which moral society and true religion would thrive and be protected. New England was a “City on a Hill” whose witness would transform corrupt religion of the Old World. Without government sanctions, spiritual heresy and moral chaos would result. This would, for example, require the exile of heretics like Williams, and the execution of heret…
Read More…that Catholics across the country have apparently paid closer attention to spirit of the Holy Father’s words than have church leaders. Polling released by the Pew Research Center last week showed a dramatic increase in Catholic support for marriage equality in the United States, with a jump from 34% in 2004, when the Michigan amendment was approved, to 59% today. For pity’s sake, even most young Republicans now favor marriage equality. As Mary E….
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…ipation Day’ to the status of other American civil holidays. To invoke the spirit of Douglass, however it must be asked, “What is Juneteenth to America?” Is it a hollow attempt to pacify angry Black protesters with a nod towards nominal diversity? This should be a national celebration as the nation’s attempt to rid itself of the last vestiges of what many consider the nation’s “original sin” of slavery. However, Juneteenth or Emancipation Day is a…
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…tial for contemplation of that term. The best maps, offer only a sense of things, a limited measure, while simultaneously serving as an invitation to further exploration. The laughter at the North Clintonville, Ohio “Krampus Parade” gathering, as pagans and friends unite to banish the spirit of evil from the yuletide season with drums and bells and masquerade—or the more solemn drumming, accompanied by the steady pat of feet in a procession of Spa…
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…pleading and spasmodic twitching, the church members filled with the Holy Spirit, rolling on the ground —all of this will be as foreign to many viewers as the practices of Planet Naboo, and far less comfortable. It’s at these moments that the film is most challenging. You either dismiss their vision as the delusional ravings of a misled sect, or you have faith that there may be the hand of God somewhere in there. True to the director’s agnostic i…
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…tside the language of the Sikh Gurus, since the Sikh journey is one toward spiritual victory. In the wake of our initial grief and injury, we were inspired by the acts of heroism: the valiant policeman Lte. Brian Murphy, the brave temple president Satwant Kaleka, the precocious young children of 9 and 11 years, Amanat and Abhay, who ran inside the temple warning of the arrival of the armed killer. This appears over and over again in Sikh thought a…
Read More…’s writings and judge for themselves. With Slattery, I recommend the early spiritual classics, “The Mass on the World” and The Divine Milieu. Among his later writings, “The Heart of Matter” provides an autobiographical explanation of his overall vision. Ursula King’s Spirit of Fire, the most recent biography of Teilhard, offers another entry point for those interested in learning about his singular life experiences. Teilhard is complex and not wit…
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…His Father; that “selfish insistence on personal rights is contrary to the spirit of Christ”; and, in a pronatalist turn of phrase that recalls the rhetoric of the Quiverfull conviction, their willingness to “receive children as a blessing from the Lord.” Finally, in a reference to the importance of woman-to-woman mentoring within the conservative church, they affirmed that “mature Christian women” are obliged to disciple the next generation of Ch…
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