Religion Dispatches
…s is a bit like the Henry Ford argument that if everyone is paid enough to buy a car, I will sell more and my profits will go up. But does this hold generally? And more importantly, why should I care about the well-being of others if I can increase my own? This is precisely the debate we are having in America today. There are those, like myself, who think that even if the very rich do get a better quality of life than the rest of us—Mayor Bloomber…
Read More
…an AIDS test, and rustle up cash. I couldn’t set my own schedule. I had to buy special clothes, eat at mandated times and attend an orientation. Rather than the dream of a peaceful retreat I’d cherished for months, this was New Age fascism. While other guests enjoyed the dissonances – a search for self set against a late-night bar scene, costly multiversity classes, and nightly videos of Osho’s rambling, racist and misogynist lectures, I felt like…
Read More
…more liberal denominations split on gun control, they’re distracted by any number of other issues: hunger, homelessness, anti-racism, advocating for LGBT rights, refugee resettlement, Israel-Palestine and on and on and on. Anybody who’s spent time in a mainline Protestant church knows that it seems like there’s a new cause every damn day. It’s difficult to coalesce around any one issue. As if that weren’t bad enough, the ongoing self-segregation o…
Read More…h his advisors proclaiming confidence in their deep pockets and ability to buy airtime, even though the campaign’s ground game is not as strong as it may seem. That ground-level weakness reflects the foundational flaw of the Romney campaign. Romney banked on the idea that conservative Christian voters would come around—with enough time, good will, and hard work. With just enough walk-shoveling. That was always a risky bet for a wonky Yankee Mormon…
Read More
…end up divorced. I did hope to entertain them too. A reviewer for the Christian Century found me “very, very funny.” Who knew? What alternative title would you give the book? “Mixed Blessings” was the runner-up. But it was too wishy washy. How do you feel about the cover? I wish it made more people buy the book. But I’m probably blaming the wrong person. Is there a book out there you wish you had written? Which one? Why? Liar’s Poker by Michael Le…
Read More
…n waste over his lands and down the creek. It would have been pointless to buy a tractor to work lands that to this day grow nothing but saltbush and weeds. So he bought a matched set of plow horses. Oil and trust accounts and a government that gives 80 acres for every thousand it takes he could not understand. Horses made sense. Besides handling the money they did not give to Moses Bruno and Eloise Cobell, the BIA is also supposed to enforce the…
Read More
…z-Weber would have an increasing influence on evangelicals, who frequently buy their books. They did not. I was incorrect in my assumption that even if progressive Christian denominations were shrinking, increasing numbers of American Christians who no longer attend church would still move toward a more progressive theology, a more Gospel-based sense of welcoming the stranger, and vote accordingly. For the most part, they did not. Thus, as a promi…
Read More…ve grown weary of such power plays. They want to believe but can no longer buy into this unbiblical bunk. To these spiritual seekers, Frank offers his account of how he left the spiritual faith of his childhood to embrace the mysteries of the orthodox faith. Through his story, Frank encourages other Christians to embark on a similar journey of self-discovery to see where God may be speaking to them these days. Also, secular readers of Frank Schaef…
Read More
…o stand up to the authoritarian drift of this administration. Or will they buy into the same politics of white resentment that got them hoodwinked into voting for Trump the first time? I don’t know. I just know that like that time with the Syrians, the extremists running the show these days make it hard to live my faith sometimes. They make it hard to stand up for the right thing. Pretty ironic, considering all their rhetoric on religious freedom….
Read More…-hours bar. This, my friends, is the kind of craziness that you just can’t buy in stores. And we’re not done yet. Because Buchanan, God bless his black little heart, thinks that this sorry state of affairs reveals the greater war on Judeo-Christian values, as evidenced by — I crap you negative — Nazi Germany: In Weimar Germany, two professors published “The Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life,” which advocated assisted suicide for the term…
Read More