Religion Dispatches
…is Harold Meyerson’s column, “Hard-Liners for Jesus.” Meyerson, one of the best mainstream pundits out there, charges that there is a huge gap between the teachings of the gospels and the preachings of the “Gospel’s Own Party.” The GOPers tout the old-time religion while violating its biblical precepts, or—to be more exact—the particular biblical precepts that Meyerson approves. He has an easy time finding contradictions between Republican policie…
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…he vanguard of research here. But there seems to be enough evidence, in my best judgment at least, to not dismiss it. Most of the threats you describe in the book are enormous, invisible, and almost impossible for most of us to imagine. Is rational, evidence-based discussion in the public sphere a sufficient tool to grasp something as large and amorphous as a global catastrophe? What does it take? I think you’re exactly right that the mental machi…
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….g., health, education) but: a) it is no miraculous panacea even under the best of conditions; and b) it can be pernicious when mixed with a focus on the self; selflessness is part of the essence of mindfulness, and self-focus perverts it. Regarding its being a panacea, I show in the book how even the best-designed, most robust research on mindfulness is overhyped. Regarding the pernicious effects of self-focus, those are general in a species that…
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…tories within evangelicalism. Fea repeatedly notes evangelicals’ mixed (at best) history with respect to race relations. He devotes nine pages to the history of racial fear in the evangelical South, but he never gets messy with the most telling factor: that no other religious group even remotely approaches white evangelicals’ preference for Trump. Race proved one of the most decisive predictors of Trump support, and white evangelicals were the mos…
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…chers, he uses his own spiritual practice to show his riders how to be the best versions of themselves…Get ready for a spiritual journey disguised as a rock concert! And here’s James J., an instructor at studios in and around New York City: Since starting his journey at Soul, James has discovered what can be done together—as a family—with the lights down low, the music up high, and our hearts wide open. Many riders seem to buy in. From a customer’…
Read More…to bomb two synagogues in New York, since, according to one suspect, “the best target” — the World Trade Center — “was hit already.” The disturbing calculus of these men can only be understood in the context of hatred, ignorance, stereotypes, and bad theology. The best antidote to this plot – and future plots like it – is more interfaith activity. We are not naïve enough to think that simply knowing folks across lines of faith will prevent violen…
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…aring with Larry King (for the full hour) and on Oprah’s popular talkfest, promoting the new HBO documentary “The Trials of Ted Haggard,” produced by Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “Oprah tried her best to pin Ted down and get him to admit he is a homosexual,” J. Lee Grady, the editor of Charisma magazine, reported. “Ted balked, saying that his sexuality is complicated. He explained that he had sexual experiences in the…
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…ntisemitic act, is thus interpreted as if it is by definition insincere at best, trickery at worst. Acknowledging the good the NOI has done in helping single Black women and incarcerated Black men doesn’t matter because acknowledging the legitimacy of an antisemite, even regarding things that have nothing whatsoever to do with Jews, puts one in his camp. Antisemitism is no longer a descriptor of behavior, but a tool of exclusion. This controversy,…
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…aders? Sexual purity movements, past and present, are not ultimately about promoting a biblical view of sexuality. They are about explaining large-scale culture crises (e.g. Anglo-Saxon decline, the Cold War, changing gender roles and sexual mores) and providing a formula for overcoming those crises. Today’s movement is laden with a therapeutic rhetoric that presents these choices as the best choices for those who seek to conform their behaviors t…
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…ship already-converted African-Americans back to Africa and wish them the best of luck. The work of the Colonization Society entailed what we now call ethnic cleansing, which the less high-minded among its founders understood full well. The Rev. Robert Finley, a Southern Presbyterian associate of Mills, made the case for Black removal in a letter to a friend in 1816:”Could they be sent back to Africa, a three-fold benefit would arise: we should b…
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