Religion Dispatches
…lues and our lifestyle? Of course we wouldn’t. So why do we expect them to welcome us with open arms and say, ‘Oh, please come and turn our societies upside down. Please change the way we work. Please make us do things the opposite from how we do them. We love America and we love equality. We love feminism. Come and teach us how to do it.’” As the two baristas chatted, agreeing on culturally relativistic values on gender, I struggled on my private…
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…ot turn ignorance to fear, and fear into hate. Returning to my city, I was welcomed once more. And I encountered the vibrancy of faith that I missed so much in my time away. The symphony of the Sh’ma, of the Lord’s Prayer, of the Fatiha, of Om Namah Shivaya, of “Fuck God,” was all around me. And in that diversity I understood my own faith. I grew up in one of the most diverse Jewish areas in America, and saw the parallels in my own faith. I knew o…
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…own sensibility. Not only do Brown and the Masons both love secrets and encoded symbols, but they believe that all of it must surely add up to some single great truth. It is a worldview that flourished in the Enlightenment, in which occult science and a deep sense of mystery surrounded the rise of modern rationalism. What today might appear to be a contradiction between reason and occult mysticism was once a natural relationship, and no other mov…
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…ake a significant contribution to it, especially in areas that have often been overlooked or simply ignored. Because of this, the ECPS is a welcome addition to the current psychedelic landscape….
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…fully vaccinated, leading to what the Wall Street Journal calls “a hero’s welcome” upon returning from his ordeal Down Under. Not only was he celebrated by the country’s anti-vaxx community and a government ostensibly struggling to vaccinate a reluctant nation, but Djokovic also enjoyed the support of the Serbian Patriarch, the highest-ranking religious official in the country. For those familiar with Orthodox Christianity’s brewing internal conf…
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…pla and stood in sharp contrast to Pope Francis’ kind, diplomatic words of welcome to the second Catholic president of the United States. The Bishops acknowledged Mr. Biden’s personal piety, but charged that he “has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity…” They weren’t referring to building walls, supporting the death penalty, interfering with voting rights, and/or withholding healthca…
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…, each of the seven largest mainline Protestant denominations had begun to welcome women to the ranks of the ordained. Although women still represent a minority of ordained mainline clergy today, their presence has grown substantially since they first entered the pulpit in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. In 1978, fewer than 3 percent of clergy were women, but by 2017, their numbers had grown to approximately one-third of ordained clergy in the mainline den…
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…, he promised his audience of die-hard fans “a baby boom,” including “baby bonuses”—inserting his very own brand of crudeness, announcing “you men out there are so lucky. You are so lucky, men”—presumably with all the sex they will be having to get those sweet baby bonuses. From a European perspective, one of the more chilling moments of the speech was when he fantasized about Russia destroying the NATO headquarters (“one clear shot from a tank!”)…
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…but not guarantee them healthcare, feed the poor, shelter the homeless, or welcome the stranger, you have to wonder if it’s really about faith at all.” No, you don’t have to wonder. It’s about their faith, full stop. Millions in this country—white evangelical Protestants and conservative white Catholics chief among them—root their genuinely held religious beliefs in opposition to modernity, which is to say, in politics. There is, therefore, no app…
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…rm, marriage equality, and reproductive rights. Those views might make him welcome in the GOP, even if the party hasn’t exactly welcomed his efforts to move it forward on another issue near and dear to him: immigration reform. Back in 2008 and 2009, Rodriguez was promoted by Democratic-leaning groups Faith in Public Life and Third Way as a centrist evangelical who had grown weary of the culture wars and wanted to bring evangelicals into a “broader…
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