Religion Dispatches
…ldest continuous congregation in America, going back, according to its web site, to 1628. The church features a dynamic, multiracial gospel choir that Clarkson says will perform. Far from a sleepy panel discussion, the church leaders in partnering with the publisher want an event that is more like a catalyst for a movement—and are exploring live-streaming the event on the internet.) Clarkson was one of the first investigative reporters to look dee…
Read More…ecomes the spirit, an imaginary municipality, Smalltown, U.S.A., becomes a site of rhetorical pilgrimage, an invocation of place as faith. The only time Pegler ever lived in a small town were his last years, when he moved into the desert outside of Tucson. Much of what he wrote was no longer publishable, but he sat in his empty, pure, American landscape pounding out more and more of it, trying to get at the monster he couldn’t name. Nearly 40 year…
Read More…t seriously] and the “Waterboard Barack Obama” posting on the official Web site of the Sacramento Republican Party have pushed me over the cliff of compassion and attempts at understanding the conservative agenda. The RNC can no longer simply denounce such hateful acts without first admitting that the Republican “southern strategy” of racial division has become their national modus operandi and self-definition. As far as the Grand Ol’ Party is con…
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…and brings down the other,” Engle said in a recent video on The Call’s Web site, explaining how prayer proved victorious over satanic forces in the spiritual warfare of an election, adding, “I directly attribute [Bush’s election] to the prayers of the saints.” Young people at his House of Prayer, said Engle, had been praying about judges for three years when Sandra Day O’Connor retired and William Rehnquist died. As if to prove to his acolytes tha…
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…loud? Lucia Hulsether: What Are You Doing Right Now? The social networking site Facebook enables its members (the vast majority of whom are students) to post a “status” describing what they are doing and thinking at any given point. This morning I logged on to my computer, and in the last fifteen hours over 400 of my friends had updated their statuses—and literally all of them addressed the election. Ninety-five percent of their statements were pr…
Read More…media (both mainstream and alternative), Moon continues to move ahead on a number of fronts. His Washington Times continues to be the daily house-organ/must-read for conservatives; he has spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting right-wing organizations and causes; he controls the US sushi industry; he does business with North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il: and as Moon watchdog John Gorenfeld has reported, Moon officially considers himself Emperor o…
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…entanglement in positive ways. On the one hand, as the United Nations AIDS site reports, “Communities of faith play a very significant role in influencing people’s behaviour and attitudes, and in providing care and support for AIDS.” Partnerships between UNAIDS and what they call FBOs (faith-based organizations) include Muslims and Christians, Hindus and Jews, and many others. Today religious organizations work alongside secular organizations to p…
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…entanglement in positive ways. On the one hand, as the United Nations AIDS site reports, “Communities of faith play a very significant role in influencing people’s behaviour and attitudes, and in providing care and support for AIDS.” Partnerships between UNAIDS and what they call FBOs (faith-based organizations) include Muslims and Christians, Hindus and Jews, and many others. Today religious organizations work alongside secular organizations to p…
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…hat he doesn’t flinch from it, but allows himself to stare deeply into the site of Jewish Christophobia. If Clara’s reactions appear comical and histrionic, they serve as counterpoint to the all-too-real fears of Malpesh, whose life is pockmarked by the traumas of anti-Jewish violence. (Even the brave Sasha Bimko, who spends her last years engaged in interfaith dialogue in Jerusalem, is not immune to such terrors.) And that is why Hershl Shveig—th…
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…ganized a rally for him, bringing their Bibles to school in support. A Web site devoted to Freshwater’s cause is called www.bibleonthedesk.com. But Dennis said the issue was never about the Bible on the desk. And nowhere in the lawsuit’s initial complaint is it even mentioned. Rather, she says, it’s because her son was branded. After Freshwater took his side public, Jenifer said she and her husband were worried Freshwater wouldn’t face disciplinar…
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