Religion Dispatches
…“boring!” Or consider the words of another megapastor, Joel Osteen, in his bestselling Your Best Life Now: “If you are struggling financially, say something such as, ‘Father, I thank You that You’re causing me to be at the right place at the right time. You are bringing wonderful financial opportunities my way.’ If you will live with an attitude of faith, then, like the saints of old, before long God’s favor is going to show up, and that situation…
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…r their rights (to very little fanfare and often to dismissal or apathy at best), this provision bothers me deeply. In any case, RFMA is very much not the Equality Act, a bill that would provide sweeping non-discrimination protections for queer Americans that has languished in Congress for years. It’s a defensive piece of legislation, a protection of the status quo rather than a step forward. If America were truly a functional democracy, we could…
Read More…annot impose their beliefs on us. We may come to a mutual agreement on the best course of action that align with religious belief, but that is different than imposing a religious edict. Two current incidents show the perilous relationship between religion and politics and responsibilities in civil society: The first case is based in the US and involves the ACLU. Several students in a Florida school district wore shirts that said “Islam is of the D…
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…e allegations. The large ballroom of the main stage was half-filled at the best of times—even during Trump’s speech, the “highlight” of the conference. Perhaps more than ever before, this year’s CPAC was a spectacle of right-wing grifters, garish influencers hoping to make it to Fox News with a viral clip, and the most MAGA of the pro-Trump wing of the Republican Party. The speakers who turned up tried their best to rile up the audience—with varyi…
Read More…e, because all the senses were quickened. This, I thought, was Rome at its best and most seductive. Perhaps it was America at its best as well. Greer went first and he recognized his role in this grand affair. He was the opening act, the warm-up band, and he handled his role with humility and self-effacing dignity. There is nothing more surprising, nor more pleasurable, than having the warm-up band make you wish them to hang around. He hung around…
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…at we have to “try on” alternative interpretations to see which offers the best fit with the whole of human experience—not merely with what we experience through our senses, but also with the broader and ultimately more important dimensions of our lived experience, including our moral and aesthetic experience and our sense of the numinous. Is a naturalistic worldview, one which explains away these latter features of our lives (or at least the last…
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…r Pérez, the division between different stages of pregnancy is illusory at best. “Doing this work makes me realize it’s not black and white,” Pérez says. “A lot of people at abortion clinics are actually having miscarriages… so trying to draw that distinction just doesn’t work for the way people lead their lives, and the way that abortion works. Midwifery care was always tied to abortion care. This connection is not a new thing. The current politi…
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Congressman Heath Shuler is best known for a few things: his NFL career, his challenge of Nancy Pelosi for House Democratic Leadership, and his co-sponsorship of anti-abortion bills. Once lauded as a new breed of Democrat, able to win in a ‘red’ district by running to the right of the party, it now looks as though the conservative evangelical “Blue Dog” Democrat may be on his way out. If he opts to run for reelection in 2012 Shuler will face a pr…
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…wn enemy, the world of quantitative reason, of risk assessment, data, the “best science,” and technological fixes? That it has mostly abandoned in embarrassment the spiritual vision of Muir? What we’ve been left with are numbers. The problem of climate change will be solved if we can reduce the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 ppm. 350 ppm: that’s the holy grail of environmentalism. As a consequence of this approach, environmentalism can te…
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…r. In a typical cycle, two embryos are transferred, to give the mother the best chance at getting pregnant at all without risking high-order multiples. However, this isn’t an exact science. There is no way to know in advance how many eggs will fertilize, or how many embryos will develop. If a woman has more embryos than can be transferred, doctors pick the two best, and freeze the remaining embryos for later use. However, the sad fact is that abou…
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