Religion Dispatches
The popular term “spiritual but not religious” only goes so far in describing an event like this. I think Burning Man shows us the enduring importance of ritual as a vehicle through which humans connect with one another and as well as with a mysterious “more,” while also showing us how these expressions are increasingly displaced outside the bounds of the dominant Western cultural concepts of “religion.”
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Both in the first wave of press in 2002 about abuse in the Catholic Church and now during this second wave, we’ve talked very little about girls, and even less about stalking and the other kinds of abuse that people in power, in particular religious authorities, enact on the unsuspecting and the young. While we have a lot of journalists covering the scandal and talking to victims, we have very little in the way of “personal narrative” of what this experience is like. I hope my novel, This Gorgeous Game, and its protagonist’s first-person voice will offer a new perspective on the conversation.
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I had mixed feelings last month when Interfaith Worker Justice’s DC office received furniture donations from the ACORN office. While I appreciated the donation of well-used furniture (I’m sure the furniture had been donated to ACORN long before it got to us), I was saddened to be the…
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Whether or not we believe in evil as a supernatural force it cannot be denied that when we as a culture project the idea of evil outwards, onto others, it gives us license to engage in extreme forms of cruelty—witch-hunting, racism, nationalistic hatred.
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“Taking aim” at both the Religious Right and the New Atheists, a new book aims to make progressive politics safe for the religious, and religion safe for progressive politics.
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Anouar Majid invites us to consider for the possibility of real communication—unscripted, improvisational, unorthodox—among Muslims and non-Muslims in America.
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Laurie Lebo traces the backstory of the pivotal case: a perfect storm of religious intolerance.
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Religious rebellion against the secular state isn’t actually about religion…
Read MorePierrette Sotelo on the role of progressive religious activists in the immigration debate…
Read MoreWhen it comes to subtle racism and able-ism in church communities, “even very well-meaning dominant groups are oblivious to their own power.”
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