Religion Dispatches
…response to Palin’s comments, John Lofton posted comments on his website The American View, and went on to decry that “even The ‘Conservative’ Women—Most Of Whom Claim To Be ‘Christians’—Are Feminists! Not A Good Sign…” with a link to Concerned Women for America’s press release celebrating the 90th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. This is one part of the Tea Party Palin is unlikely to win over….
Read MoreA sure sign that change is afoot in Cuba is the opening of the first Roman Catholic seminary since the 1959 revolution. President Raul Castro was in attendance, as was Archbishop Thomas Wenski and several other priests from Miami. In the wake of the Church’s continued involvement in the release of over fifty political prisoners on the island, last week’s inauguration is a material symbol of the easing tensions between the Cuban government and the…
Read More…Consider yourself lucky if this happens. It’s not as if there are not only signs everywhere, but also the sacred is manifest everywhere in every thing and at every moment. All one has to do is, like Zelda, stand still at the right place or at the right time and let it “be.” But we are too busy collecting gems, and swordfighting with demons, I guess, to notice, so wham! How nice to get that kind of slap in the face, really. Awe is the response we m…
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…write the terms on yet another scrap of paper. ‘Do they go together? Can a sign of the right realism be that it leads to this religion?’” With Whitman, with Melville, Preib feels and is drawn to “their strong conviction, a faith in their writing, a religious sense.” Indeed, he is a devotee of this religion himself; his car littered, literally, with fragments of thoughts and observations, artifacts of his commitment to “a kind of faith that lingers…
Read More…ion of Independence is a document Gingrich maintains proves “American exceptionalism,” which of course a Kenyan anti-colonialist doesn’t understand either. In a depressing, ridiculous, maddening sign of the times, the White House press office actually issued a statement to Brody that “The President is in full agreement with the Declaration of Independence.”…
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…t was too much so after talking to my editor the cover went back for a redesign. About a month later I received an email with a PDF of the new jacket and I was blown away. It was the same exact design but with a stock photo of an old house. It looked amazing, but not as good as it did when I saw my first copy of the actual, printed book. The cover just radiates and I don’t know how the designer did it, but the colors and the fonts and the photos a…
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…r queer. Love Won Out conferences, sponsored by Focus on the Family, are designed to reach conservative Christians in churches and political organizations who may have never considered the issue of homosexuality. Their aim is to establish referral networks between the churches and ex-gay ministries. When a young person divulges to a pastor or religious leader that she is queer, the church will immediately refer her to an ex-gay ministry and encour…
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…. He marched along with a thousand men, including Nickelberry, all holding signs that said, “I Am A Man.” The night of his famous last speech, he had not been scheduled, but had arrived at the urging of his friend and confidant the Rev. Ralph Abernathy. “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life,” King said. “Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mounta…
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…something here I haven’t thought about?’ And those who experienced it as a significant problem two years ago still experience it as a significant problem. A problem that to many is even exacerbated because the church wants to just do Business As Usual. I know plenty of LDS people who are in no mood to do Business As Usual. Even in the heart of institutional Mormonism, many LDS people remain conflicted, sensitive, unclear, ambivalent, and tender ab…
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…the hands of the clergy, and that’s the end. I don’t mean to minimize the significance of either—for so many people, enough really is enough. It’s too painful to go back. What I’m proposing is a struggle, but a necessary one. But their significance can be exaggerated. When progressives leave their counterparts shape the Church more and more as they like it. Some have tried forming alternative Catholic communities, groups that celebrate their own…
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