Religion Dispatches
The exaggerated indulgence in high-risk activities at the Winter Olympics offers more than a subtle glimpse into the deeper connections the Greeks perceived between sport and war. In the US we want greater speed, but fewer crashes; higher platforms, but we don’t want anyone to get hurt. We imagine ever-riskier surgical procedures, but we seem surprised and morally outraged if they fail.
Read More
Many Israelis and Jews took to Avatar with aplomb, likening it to Kabbalah and turning out in record numbers in Israel. But it remains to be seen how Jews and Israelis will respond to Palestinian protesters who, dressed as the film’s besieged protagonists, aim to position themselves in the hearts of observers as the sympathetic underdogs.
Read More
The recent firing of a progressive leader by the Jerusalem Post has lit up the international press. If Israel is entering its own McCarthy era, as many fear, it is not without American support—on both sides. So where’s the American media coverage?
Read More
Sara Miles was a journalist and a chef who wandered into a San Francisco church one Sunday, got religion, and stayed to start a food pantry that now feeds 600 families a week. We talked to her recently about her newest book, Jesus Freak: Feeding, Healing, Raising the Dead.
Read More
While Tiger Woods’ public apology offers us the chance to talk about rituals of confession and repentance, we must not forget to ask who this mythical “public” is that we hear so much about.
Read MoreNotorious healing televangelist faces divorce.
Read More
Benedict urges Catholic priests to use digital tech to teach and to evangelize, but the Holy Father may be underestimating the power of the non-hierarchical ethos of social media. Here’s hoping we might actually see a Vatican 2.0.
Read More
Ted Haggard, one of America’s most successful megachurch preachers, was officially separated from his church back in 2006. His wife and partner, Gayle, has stuck by his side through it all and has written a new book on the experience. RD spoke with her about their former church, their evolving views on homosexuality, and the future.
Read More
In the 1990s angels became a spiritual accoutrement for prosperous yet troubled baby-boomers adrift in a suburban wasteland of McMansions and Lincoln Navigators. Do the angry angels of the new film Legion, with their roots in angelmania, mean that for many Americans God is absent? And do these creatures, heavenly and horrific, fill the vacuum?
Read MoreAfter a Tennessee news report touts anti-Muslim propaganda, a mosque is vandalized.
Read More
