Religion Dispatches
…erstand how and why it happened. But while concerns over environmental degradation and the billions in lost revenue occupy much of the news, the question of responsibility remains central. And who is responsible? Who is to blame? Unfortunately, the two most popular interpretations offer little help. They do, however, provide useful illustrations of the kind of thinking that helped create the crisis in the first place and they also suggest a deeper…
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…cloth over his head for an hour or more before he is allowed to see light again. It might be even harder to imagine Ben Franklin submitting to these indignities. Or George Washington. Or Theodore or Franklin Roosevelt. But all of them did, along with eleven other presidents, and a great many of the leading politicians, generals, artists, and scientists of this country and several others. And some of them have done even more outlandish things as p…
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…or what you did,” Jay Bakker told a group gathered in Durham, North Carolina a couple weeks ago. Bakker, pastor of the Brooklyn-based Revolution NYC, had traveled south to his home state—the state that, decades ago, witnessed firsthand the rise, and then the fall, of his televangelist parents’ PTL ministry—to speak out against a ballot initiative up for vote tomorrow. If passed, Amendment 1 would modify North Carolina’s constitution to declare “ma…
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…ian Right and the GOP—an assault that’s advancing to disturbing degrees in a number of Republican-controlled states, even if a court in Texas has stayed the investigation into the Does, for now. Apart from that context, I wouldn’t bother writing a column about an incident of online bullying, something I and every vocal marginalized social media user with any visibility, along with every journalist who covers controversial topics—especially if the…
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…, from a conservative, but upper-middle-class family, was quietly spirited away to a clinic a few towns over, her biggest bother having to make up a chemistry exam. The other one, for whom scrambling the several hundred needed out-of-pocket was unfeasible, carried her child to term, giving birth a few weeks before prom. Their futures would only continue to diverge. For the past four decades, the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for…
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…at Dr. Martin Luther King had been killed. Just a week later—a week of upheaval in my city and our country—the volcano of transformation entered within me, minutes before Passover began. Passover? Why was that suddenly so shattering? I had always taken the Seder seriously, but I was astounded to feel this moment shaking me to my core. Why was this Passover different from any other Passover? I was 34 years old, living in Washington DC and working f…
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…l disclosure: I have written for all of the above, as well as for America magazine.) Other models of Catholic church news sources, however, fall under Vatican jurisdiction. This sometimes skews their ability to have complete editorial control. America magazine is supported by the Jesuits, and its former editor, Thomas Reese, SJ, was pressured into resigning due to objections to magazine content from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,…
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…erested in religion in prison in general. I visited Angola Prison in Louisiana and got a tour of the prison. New Orleans Baptist Seminary runs a theology program in the prison—they offer classes and train missionaries that are then sent to other prisons in the state. I asked to speak to one of the seminary members, and the guard introduced me to an inmate named Charlie. Our conversation happened as the guard was looking on, and I realized at that…
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…on campus.” Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman of the Reconstructionist congregation Shaarei Shamayim in Madison, Wisconsin, and likewise a member of the JVP rabbinic council, said, “I think for younger Jews, ethnic solidarity doesn’t mean anything to them.” Younger Jews aren’t as likely to believe that Jews share a tribal or ethnic solidarity around Israel as “the people of my generation or older do,” said Zimmerman, who is 40. In one-on-one conversations, s…
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…by family and friends, knowing that he would soon meet his beloved Nellie again, who had passed on some 25 years earlier. But the tears in my eyes were not for Coach; in losing him, we lost not just one of the great American men of the last century—one of our greatest teachers—but someone who transcended our differences and cared for everyone. There are many dichotomies we are fond of dividing America into: black and white, rich and poor, native…
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