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   30 June, 2004 Describing the intentions behind his visit to Sudanese officials, Colin Powell told reporters: "I hope to give them a very direct message about how the United States and the international community see the horrific situation that exists in Darfur." But... [ Continue reading: ] 30 June, 2004 Shortly before meeting with Vatican officials, Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley of Boston, made a rare public statement of his frustration with the Vatican's slowness in resolving the backlog of priest abuse cases. Nationwide, about 700 priests and deacons have been... [ Continue reading: ]  29 June, 2004 Timorese Foreign Minister and Nobel peace prize winner Jose Ramos Horta warned yesterday that God could punish Australia if the country refused to a fair divide of the contested oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea, Mark Baker of... [ Continue reading: ] 29 June, 2004 "Pastors say they never instruct their congregations how to vote, but in many ways they don't have to. Even in churches with no overt sign of political activity, the link between Bush's stand on social issues, particularly his opposition to... [ Continue reading: ]  28 June, 2004 Lunchtime in the Cafeteria of "Spiritual Anorexia": Linda Stewart Ball, of The Dallas Morning News, reports on the four-day Dallas conference of the International Boys' Schools Coalition, themed "Broad Shoulders, Open Minds." One of the conference's speakers, longtime schoolmaster Rev.... [ Continue reading: ] Our Favorite Demon Jeff Sharlet celebrates I.B. Singer's 100th birthday with a consideration of the Nobel laureate's demons: “Scholars may suppose they are tools of psychology, good Jews may insist they are mirrors in which we can glimpse the complex mind of God. But Jewish writers know better...” Plus, a guide to the Jewish Forward's spendid special Singer edition. [ Continue reading: ] 28 June 2004 The Rev. Lon Solomon counts among his congregants and close friends Bush commerce secretary Don Evans, Clinton prosecutor Kenneth Star, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, possibly the most conservative man on the Hill, and fellow Sooner fire-breather, Sen. Don Nickles.... [ Continue reading: ] 28 June, 2004 NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty begins a three part series on religion in the workplace with a profile of the HomeBanc Mortgage Company, wherein employees are encouraged to join employee prayer groups or speak with corporate chaplains. Listen to Hagerty's report... [ Continue reading: ]  27 June, 2004 "'In heaven there is no beer, that's why we drink it here.'" The National Enquirer stumbles into Denver's prayerful nightclub, The Church at the Bar, and in between dreadful puns, manages to summarize the church's outreach mission. According to its... [ Continue reading: ]  25 June, 2004 Crossroads in Sweetwater: The Sweetwater Reporter describes a recent group of visitors to the small Texan town: the prolife pilgrims of Crossroads, who make an annual walk across the entire continental United States, "'in atonement for the abortion holocaust and... [ Continue reading: ]  Re-Branding Revolution Kathryn Joyce: After The Los Angeles Times reported on the draft of new Christian-political guidelines being considered by the National Association of Evangelicals, the blogosphere buzzed about Larry Stammer's "expose" of the "top-secret document"—intended for "private circulation" among NAE members, but cunningly “snagged” by The LA Times. The cause of all this titillation? The supposed revolutionary nature of the document, a "nightmare come true" for Karl Rove... [ Continue reading: ] 24 June, 2004 "'Put on a church hat and I had instant class, a bunch of class.'" Annette John-Hall writes on black women, church and millinery in The Philadelphia Inquirer. 9:35 am: A California Councilman, Jack Feller, has renewed his request to place... [ Continue reading: ]  23 June, 2004 From The Washington Times: "More than a dozen lawmakers attended a congressional reception this year honoring the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in which Moon declared himself the Messiah and said his teachings have helped Hitler and Stalin be 'reborn as... [ Continue reading: ] 23 June, 2004 A Moscow ruling bans the Jehovah's Witnesses, after a six-year court battle over the group's legal registration under Russia's 1997 law on religion. Fred Weir, of The Christian Science Monitor explains what the ban means for the group's 10,000-member Moscow... [ Continue reading: ]  22 June, 2004 "Today thousands of Chabad faithful are expected to gather in Queens, N.Y., at the grave of Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson to mark the 10th anniversary of his death. Among them will be a fair number who believe Schneerson is soon... [ Continue reading: ] How to Handicap the Lord Jeff Sharlet: Faith is not just a political "predictor"; it's faith. That means it's also a mystery. To their credit, both Bush and Kerry understand this, albeit in different ways. Bush doesn't try to justify the firmness of his faith, and Kerry doesn't try to explain his. The distinction between them isn't one of holiness vs. secularism, but of religious traditions and experiences. Bush's faith came to him quickly and completely, salvation from a life that'd been leading nowhere. Kerry regained his after taking other people's lives in Vietnam, and grew into it slowly. Bush's religion is radical; Kerry's is conservative. Neither man has much respect for authority within their ostensible traditions, Methodism and Catholicism. [ Continue reading: ] 22 June, 2004 "'Our hopes are that God will intervene prior to the rest of us dying,' said Clive Doyle, caretaker of the Mt. Carmel site and the keeper of the flickering Branch Davidian flame. 'But we do have to face facts: Eventually... [ Continue reading: ] 22 June, 2004 "'It's hard to organize atheists,'" 77-year old Minnesotan Marie Castle said. "'It's like herding cats.'" But organize them she does, four weeks ago having opened what may be the first openly atheist community center in the country. And, writes Herón... [ Continue reading: ] 22 June 2004 British football, writes the BBC's Stephen Tomkins, "doesn't just look like worship, it has taken over almost all the patterns of British life and behaviour that used to belong to Christianity."... [ Continue reading: ] 22 June 2004 French-Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun recently won the $120,000 IMPAC Dublin literary award for his novel, This Blinding Absence of Light, the story of a Moroccan political prisoner who maintains his sanity by memorizing the Quran. BBC, AP, Reuters, and... [ Continue reading: ]  June 21, 2004 Dr. Tom Frame, Anglican bishop to the Australian Defence Force, offers this mea culpa in The Melbourne Anglican: "As the only Anglican bishop to have endorsed the Australian Government's case for war, I now concede that Iraq did not possess... [ Continue reading: ] 21 June, 2004 Ever the multi-tasker, God has taken up the cause of the anti-EU UK Independence Party. At least according to Reverend Philip Foster, vicar of St. Matthew's Church, Cambridge, who invited his congregation to a special service to offer thanks for... [ Continue reading: ] WSJ's Dark Age Holly Berman diagnoses a dangerous case of double dipping: Bestselling historian Niall Ferguson regurgitates his latest Foreign Policy "warning" for the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. What's the urgent occasion? "Endemic rapine" perpetrated by ungrateful third worlders. Eek! [ Continue reading: ] 21 June 2004 Dallas Morning News scoop: "A prominent candidate to succeed Pope John Paul II recently sheltered a priest who is an admitted child molester and now an international fugitive, The Dallas Morning News has learned...." And it gets worse. 9:50 am:... [ Continue reading: ] 21 June, 2004 The Holly King, God of the Waning Year, encounters the Oak King and usurps the reign of the year. Read more about the Summer Solstice: --Christina Aubin's overview at Witchvox. --The BBC's Solstice/Paganism page. --Jason Pitzl-Waters collects related news articles... [ Continue reading: ] 21 June, 2004 The ultimate computation? Skeptic publisher Michael Shermer considers the latest figures on the probability of God's existence (67 percent), and asks: "If faith is tethered to science, what happens when the science changes?" Read more. 9:05 am: "And what if... [ Continue reading: ]  19 June, 2004 The Islamist website that last Wednesday posted threats to kill American hostage Paul Johnson yesterday posted photographs of his decapitated body. A statement accompanied the photographs, saying: "This is to heal believer's hearts. It is God's voice rising in anger,"... [ Continue reading: ]  18 June, 2004 In The Indian Express, T.V.R. Shenoy tallies the influence religion has on "the two greatest democracies on this planet," squaring the Pledge controversy in the United States against Indian debates over Hindutva and calls there to "'de-saffronise' the curriculum." He... [ Continue reading: ]  Lost Boys in 7th Heaven Leshu Torchin: Several weeks ago one of the few evangelical programs on network television, 7th Heaven, moved into advocacy-territory with its "Lost and Found" episode, wherein one of Reverend Eric Camden's ever-expanding brood, Ruthie, encounters something like the real world beyond fictional Glenoak, California. Ruthie and her boyfriend Peter are lost when they stumble into this reality and meet two Sudanese "Lost Boys," Jacob Puka and Nicodemus Lim: real-life refugees playing refugees. [ Continue reading: ] 17 June, 2004 Basava Premanand, "India's leading guru-buster" and "scourge of all miracle-makers," has been burgled again, the BBC's Tanya Datta reports. Premanand, who has been trying to debunk India's biggest spiritual leader, the "self-proclaimed 'God-man,'" Sri Satya Sai Baba, for nearly 30... [ Continue reading: ] 17 June, 2004 "If God's Man in Texas were God's Man in Tampa Bay, Randy and Paula White would be the main characters," writes Sharon Tubbs in the St. Petersburg Times. The regional-theatre play, inspired by the late megachurch-minister, W.A. Criswell, has been... [ Continue reading: ] 17 June, 2004 Schism-watch: "'We have been two churches for a long time. The lid has been blown off.'" Episcopal delegates decided yesterday to recognize same-sex unions and that locally created blessings for the unions were part of church doctrine. Jeffrey Weiss of... [ Continue reading: ]  Bloomsday Special: WWJJD? James Joyce: --That was a good answer our friend made to the canon. What? said Mr. Dedalus ...I'll pay you your dues, father, when you cease turning the house of God into a pollingbooth. --A nice answer, said Dante, for any man calling himself a catholic to give to his priest. --They have only themselves to blame, said Mr. Dedalus suavely. If they took a fool's advice they would confine their attention to religion. --It is religion, Dante said...They are right. They must direct their flocks. --And preach politics from the altar, is it? asked Mr. Dedalus. --Certainly, said Dante. [ Continue reading: ] 16 June, 2004 Jim Smith of the Philadelphia Daily News reports: Federal prosecutors of Clayton Lee Waagner are demanding a life sentence for the "war of terror" waged by the anti-abortion extremist in October and November of 2001. Waagner, founder of the Army... [ Continue reading: ] 16 June, 2004 The Da Vinci Diet? The AP reports on Stephen Lanzalotta, a baker who lost nearly half his customers to the low-carb craze. Lanzalotta has incorporated the biblical lore and mystical "golden ratio" mathematics of Dan Brown's bestseller, The Da Vinci... [ Continue reading: ]  The Catholic Divide? Kathryn Joyce: This week John Tierney dispensed a reassuring new truth: the culture war is all in our heads, a luxury born of general national unity. Meanwhile on the Catholic blog, Open Book, one reader offered another this bargain: “If you don’t call me a sodomite,” he wrote, “I won’t call you a f***ing breeder, OK?” If it’s true, as Tierney writes, that the culture war is an elite-sponsored myth, then Beltway-insiders are meeting success as they spread the word, got-up as it is in its latest disguise: the Catholic Divide. [ Continue reading: ] 15 June, 2004 A bewildering report from the Norwich Bulletin describes the eviction of the God's House group from the Moosup Manor housing complex. 9:03 am: Yesterday's cuddly guru: CNN's Todd Leopold interviews New Age author Neale Donald Walsch on his latest book,... [ Continue reading: ]  14 June 2004 Washington Times: "The Texas Republican Party plank says, 'Christian Nation — The Republican Party of Texas affirms that the United States of America is a Christian nation, and the public acknowledgment of God is undeniable in our history. Our nation... [ Continue reading: ] 14 June 2004 The Church of Chuck Norris: Prestonwood Baptist, in Plano, Texas (a Dallas suburb), that is. But Norris isn't what puts this mega-congregation of 23,000 on the map, it's the church's pastor, Jack Graham, president of the Southern Baptist Convention. A... [ Continue reading: ] 14 June 2004 Flag Day special: Supreme Court rules that God is good, at least as far as the Pledge is concerned. Well, not exactly -- rather, the justices ruled that Michael Newdow does not have sufficient custody of his daughter to sue... [ Continue reading: ] 14 June, 2004 9:20 am: The bomb blast in Baghdad that killed at least 10 this morning, was accompanied by the favored anti-American slogan, "America is the enemy of God." The infidel-accusation extended farther, as The Washington Post's Edward Cody reports "The young... [ Continue reading: ]  13 June, 2004 12:21 pm: "'I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.'" Berta Delgado of The Dallas Morning News reports on the soon-to-retire Jack Graham, president of... [ Continue reading: ]  12 June, 2004 12:02 pm: "Taming Wild Horses in God's Eyes." Matt Monaghan on Utah's missionary horse-trainer. 11:55 am: God's face on a bikini. 11:49 am: In Belzec, Poland, a mass grave of 500,000 has been opened to the public with the digging... [ Continue reading: ]  11 June, 2004 9:10 am: In court: The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the Nebraska city of Omaha on behalf of a Muslim woman who was barred from entering a city pool while fully clothed. And Brigitte Bardot is convicted in Paris... [ Continue reading: ] 11 June, 2004 8:35 am: Bugs and computer chips at the Vatican . 8:24 am: "'Long before there was a Jerry Falwell or a Pat Robertson or even a Tom Delay, there was a Martin Luther King Jr., a Dorothy Day and an... [ Continue reading: ]  10 June 2004 8:44 pm: One of the bloggers at Not Perfection puts the events of the week in perspective. "I feel bad about Ronald Reagan’s passing, but let’s keep perspective. You heard the call for it here first -- put Ray Charles... [ Continue reading: ] Save This Patton Dodd: Evangelicals on film occupy an odd if unsurprising position: they are almost always represented as aggressors. Consider Robert Duvall’s conflicted evangelist in The Apostle, John Swanbeck’s belligerent Baptist salesman in The Big Kahuna, and Robert Mitchum's evil preacher in Night of the Hunter -- and now Mandy Moore's Christian queen bee in Saved! [ Continue reading: ] June 10, 2004 11:25 am: Selective inspiration: The Houston Chronicle reports on First Lady Laura Bush's continued opposition to stem-cell research, reiterated in a series of television interviews this Wednesday. While Nancy Reagan pleads for the depoliticization of stem-cell research (which could likely... [ Continue reading: ] 10 June 2004 10:37 am: How to lead The Purpose-Driven Life behind bars: John Leland reports in the NYTimes on the California prison system's adoption of the bestselling evangelical how-to guide. Leland sidesteps the predictable faultline for such stories (church v. state, which... [ Continue reading: ]  Fashionable Madmen Joan Didion: "That the ethic of conscience is intrinsically insidious seems scarcely a revelatory point, but it is one raised with increasing infrequency; even those who do raise it tend to segue with troubling readiness into the quite contradictory position that the ethic of conscience is dangerous when it is 'wrong,' and admirable when it is 'right.'" [ Continue reading: ] 09 June 2004 5:34 pm: The next miracle will not be televised. BBC reports that Nigeria has banned the broadcast of miracles -- unless, of course, they can be verified. 11:00 am: Tonight in NYC: Revealer editor Jeff Sharlet reads a story at... [ Continue reading: ] 09 June 2004 10:50 am: A story by Deb McCown in The Washington Times illustrates a potential rift in the alleged Republican religion lock. What matters more to conservatives -- freedom of faith, or small government? The issue at hand is a Montana... [ Continue reading: ] 09 June 2004 10:43 am: Truth and Reconciliation in Belfast? The British government is urging Northern Ireland to follow South Africa's unique example by establishing their own TRC to bear witness and possibly grant amnesty to those involved with "the Troubles." Read more.... [ Continue reading: ]  08 June 2004 8:19 pm: From the leader of a land just like America, but with even more beer: "Let me say that faith, religion has no room in politics. The fact is that this government would never allow that. For this [politician]... [ Continue reading: ]  The Day After “Morning in America” Peter Manseau: For better or worse, it is from Ronald Reagan that I and others of my generation, learned the meaning of apocalypse. If not the word itself, then at least the implication of it; the threat. The Possibility. Amid all the endless tributes to the Gipper and the Great Communicator, it is unlikely we will hear many references to Reagan as the reader of signs and portents. We will not be treated to the soundbites that are every bit as apocalyptic as anything found in Left Behind. And yet that, too, is part of his legacy. [ Continue reading: ] 07 June 2004 9:50 pm: "They almost thought I was one of them or something," said Macaulay Culkin of the young Christians he met while researching his latest role, as a paraplegic skeptic among the Saved! Culkin and Saved! director Brian Dannelly talked... [ Continue reading: ]  06 JUNE 2004 12:18 pm: Since Revealer editor Jeff Sharlet blurbed What Would Buffy Do? The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide -- "At last, a Buffy book as smart as Buffy, the show. Riess has given us the key to understanding the subtle... [ Continue reading: ]  05 June, 2004 5:20 pm: Fifteen years after the Tiananmen Square massacre, the BBC's Louisa Lim reports on its legacy--part of which is the growth of Christianity in an officially atheist state. One former demonstrator, Zhu Hong, credits China's repressive government for his... [ Continue reading: ] 05 June 2004 11:34 am: If you crossed Jorge Luis Borges and Isaac Babel, and forced the monstrosity that resulted to write on deadline, you might wind up with something like the journalism of Steven I. Weiss -- erudite and two-fisted, obsessive-compulsive brilliance... [ Continue reading: ]  The Third Martyr By Ali Eteraz: The nameless, hooded prisoner crucified with wires at Abu Ghraib has already joined the list of great martyrs killed in the region now known as Iraq, a list that includes Hussain, the son of the Prophet Muhammad, and al-Hallaj, one of the founders of Sufism. If the revolutionary movements associated with these two martyrs are any indication, the American crucifixion at Abu Ghraib may have unwittingly given to the world of the disaffected a new symbol of defiance. The prisoner at Abu Ghraib, in fact, represents the most vivid and flammable mixture of the qualities of the two most famous historical Iraqi martyrs. [ Continue reading: ] 04 June 2004 3:30 pm: And the most Catholic senator of them all is... John Kerry! So says a new "study" by Sen. Dick Durbin, according to Amy Fagan in The Washington Times. Rick "Man-on-dog" Santorum (20th most Catholic senator ) points out... [ Continue reading: ]  3 June, 2004 New Revealer feature: The pictures from Abu Ghraib won't just change the course of the war, writes Ameer U. Shaikh -- they may transform Islam. Read "The Third Martyr." Karl Rove turns to numerology: Asks for 1600 Pennsylvania churches to... [ Continue reading: ] Coming Very Soon... We'll be launching our fabulous new design update -- courtesy of Betsy Vardell -- within a few hours. Check back soon...... [ Continue reading: ] The Third Martyr In the Islamic world, writes Ameer U. Shaikh, the tortured prisoners of Abu Ghraib aren't just victims, they're martyrs, and only the latest in a long line that stretches back to the grandson of the Muhammad. The photographs made by... [ Continue reading: ]  02 June 2004 The making of martyrs: Nancy Updike, Malia Zoghlin, and Michael Wean combine photographs and sound to document -- step by step -- the process by which Palestinians killed in combat are laid in the grave as martyrs. In the handsome... 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DEADLINE THEOLOGY
What Is It About the O.C.? In the wake of the FBI’s public appeal earlier last week for help locating seven alleged terrorists, observes Julia Rabig, the press responded with profiles of Adam Yahiye Gadahn, the only American citizen among the suspects. Although none of them explicitly links Gadahn to John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban," most try to fit him into the taxonomy of the impassioned California seeker gone awry, an archetype of American journalism. [ Continue reading: ]  The Jesus Factor On the uses and abuses of neutrality by the religious right, the liberal media, and journalists in the middle. --Kathryn Joyce & Jeff Sharlet [ Continue reading: ] |