Religion Dispatches
…toric. When Iowa did it in 2009, it was a shocker. Iowa? Really? But, when New York did it this past weekend – I predict it will be remembered as the tipping point. “The more that other states recognize the fairness and the importance of passing equal marriage rights, the more likely it is to pass here,” said Patrick Wojahn, the chairman of the board of the Equality Maryland Foundation, which fought this year’s marriage battle in Annapolis. “It’s…
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…s with them, unhindered: Germans, Scandinavians, and the Dutch who founded New Amsterdam (later New York). So Lutherans, Catholics, and the Dutch Reformed celebrated Christmas, along with the Church of England that continued restrained Christmas observances. As a result of this mixture, in the American colonies and then in the new nation, there was no national consensus supporting Christmas, and the disagreement was between Christians. American Ch…
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…abella of Spain forbade Columbus and his crew from enslaving people in the New World, unless those people were cannibals. If they were cannibals, the Queen announced, Columbus could take them, put them in chains, and sell them wherever he pleased, inside or outside Isabella’s many realms. Reports of cannibalism in the New World spiked. In general, cannibalism is widely reported but difficult to confirm. Subjects will often tell ethnographers about…
Read More…cilities, this will be more attractive to young people.” The building of a new mosque near New York’s Ground Zero is becoming a political football in that state’s governor’s race. Discrimination is also a problem for Satanists—or, for one particular Satanist, at least. Irving Davis, a convicted murderer, argues that his conviction be thrown out because his foray into Satanism should not have been revealed to the jury. Hearing the appeal, Judge Mic…
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…entic” religion and popular, secular practice. In Sweat Equity: Inside the New Economy of Mind and Body, journalist Jason Kelly traces the connections between money and fitness culture. He recently spoke with The Cubit about running highs, meditation apps, and the inherent difficulty of selling authenticity. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You argue that Millennials treat fitness—and especially group fitness classes—as an al…
Read More…s-than-desired ratings. Which makes, at least momentarily, the boroughs of New York City a Glenn Beck radio free zone. (Word has it syndicators are looking for a new outlet.) Perhaps Beck’s self-styled turn to the prophetic last summer and fall—which included forays into the world of Black theology and the mysteries of the Bat Creek Stone, as well as his lachrymose and prayer-scented DC Rally in August —didn’t go over so well with hardboiled cons…
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…ionality and the transcendent. This leads you to hope for something like a new apophatic theology which may in fact embrace unknowing in a new way, without necessarily becoming simply another postmodern suspicion of the master narrative. Can you develop this idea a little more, and tell me how, in your boldest moments, you dream that it might come about? (I imagine the Charter for Compassion might be part of your answer.) We need to realize that w…
Read More…y claim. I was ready to be proud once again, but about 30 seconds into the new ad, I was appalled and disappointed. The ad, set to some rockin’ acoustic guitar music, is bouncing along wonderfully, highlighting the diversity of the UCC. Then, a man and a woman share a prolonged kiss. The next scene is a pastor pronouncing two women married – the women turn to one another and … cut to the next scene. Wait! What? I get to see two hot young heterosex…
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…ware and civically engaged? Malcolm Gladwell recently wrote a piece in The New Yorker, “Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted,” comparing the effectiveness of social media activism with the protests and activism of the civil rights movement. The conclusion Gladwell draws from his analysis, as is evident in the title, is to dismiss the effectiveness of new social media by arguing that it operates off of weak ties, rather than the str…
Read More…ch itself, in a contemporary version of Know-Nothing politics we can ill afford in the context of our current crises. A stimulus package ought not be reduced to preventing our best and brightest faculty from stimulating the powers of critical reasoning and the potential for new insights these powers create. The Cold War is over and, to use an ironic phrase Sherman used in the summer of 1864, “fairly won.” So the new MacCarthyism turns to a perenni…
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