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   "That's Simply Not True." Cheers to Anderson Cooper for breaking out of the "objectivity" mold that usually lets guys like Jerry Falwell present theology as fact.... [ Continue reading: ] God / Spy Retired FBI Special Agent Jim Olhson reviews two new books about espionage: "From early in my involvement as a Christian working with national security, I have marveled at the striking analogy between intelligence work and missionary work..." [ Continue reading: ] The God That Sucked Ukraine: The bright colors, the all-night parties in the streets... it's a revolution, baby! Which means you can forget tough questions. Since our Ukrainian is rusty, we're in no position to ask them ourselves. But all we need is English... [ Continue reading: ] Ahmadis in Pakistan Two news items from Pakistan point to growing tensions surrounding the Ahmadis, a religious minority that considers itself the purest form of Islam, but which has been persecuted as a non-Muslim group by Pakistan's Islamic government, which declared the sect... [ Continue reading: ] The God-Gap, Baghdad-Style According to the leaders of two Iraqi political parties, the January elections will be based on the struggle between religion and secularism, rather than the sectarian battle between Muslims that analysts have predicted. Hamid al-Kifaey, leader of the new secular... [ Continue reading: ] The Defense of Boy Scouts Act Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has introduced legislation to protect Boys Scounts from "attacks by liberal groups," by preventing any federal law or ruling from limiting federal support of the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, including meetings held on... [ Continue reading: ] Christian Sleepers "'Evolution -- is that the Darwin theory? I don't know just what he was thinking!'" So said a sophmore at Dover Area High School, the Pennsylvania school district that has become the first in the country to mandate the teaching... [ Continue reading: ] Reasons to Believe Hey Blue-Staters! Don't listen to David Brooks. The reasons to "get religion" don't all have to be about political calculation...... [ Continue reading: ] Happy Birthday, Ceausescu Cult of personality: Angela Boteza asks God to forgive the late Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu his evil deeds, clears frayed Bibles from his grave, and thinks fondly of the brute's glory days, when he presided over the murder of 60,000 and stole $1 billion from his countrymen. And she's not alone... [ Continue reading: ] Panting, Drooling, Revealing, Killing: A Memoir of Faith Evangelical memoirist Patton Dodd has panted and drooled about Francis Schaeffer, revealed his true feelings about DC Talk, and now he goes and kills Richard Roberts' Buddha: "I believe that God slays people in the Spirit (it happened to King Saul and Saul/Paul in the Bible, after all) and I have friends who have had important spiritual experiences while being slain, but since my only slaying experience ended in my coming to grips with the fact that I only tried to be slain and did not really experience anything unusual, I am wary of it. I don’t want to trick myself into it again, and I surely don’t want to be tricked into it by a gung ho minister. I pray through all this as Roberts comes closer. If I experience You today, God, I want it to be real. Genuine. I don’t want to make anything up." Read more. [ Continue reading: ] Grand Inquisitor Brooks NYT conservative columnist David Brooks says Jerry Falwell is not an "authentic" evangelical. Brooks, a Jewish writer who last we knew had never bothered to crack a Bible, also sees fit to excommunicate Al Sharpton from the faith. So who's... [ Continue reading: ]  The Good News Club Tina Hinz of The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier in Iowa reports on the progress of after-school Good News Clubs in Iowa elementary schools. The clubs, of which there are currently 1,300 nationwide, are a ministry of the international Child Evangelism Fellowship... [ Continue reading: ] Transexual Inheritance in Saudi Arabia "'The events of Sept. 11, 2001 changed many people’s lives and many Saudis, especially students. The big question of course was: How would I return to Saudi Arabia? What would my legal status be in the Kingdom? I had a... [ Continue reading: ] If Jerry Falwell Really Cared About Marriage... A member of the New Zealand parliament, Paul Adams, is fasting for three weeks in the hope that God will intervene in the passage of the Civil Union Bill, which would give same-sex relationships legal status equal to heterosexual marriage.... [ Continue reading: ] Swiss Stem-Cells Swiss voters have approved a new law permitting embryonic stem-cell research by a two-thirds margin, after Switzerland became the first country in the world to put the issue to a popular vote.... [ Continue reading: ] P.R. for Knights Templar The Knights Templar, a secretive organization formed during the Crusades to protect Christian pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land and a group which the Freemasons claim as ancestors, has requested a papal apology 700 years after the Catholic Church, under... [ Continue reading: ] Apologetic Islam Adam Becker: “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.” This statement by George W. Bush, made September 17, 2001, demonstrates his subtle understanding of the etymology of the word “Islam” -- that it is cognate with “salām,” the Arabic word for peace. It was part of the president’s plea to the American public not to attack Muslim Americans out of prejudice and anger over the terrorist attacks which had occurred the week before. According to this statement as well as others Bush made at the time, the terrorists were not really Muslims since “Islam means peace.” Such statements declare the limits of what is and is not Islam and function to maintain the assumption held by many, especially in this time of faith-based initiatives, that religion (or faith, spirituality, etc.) is always something good; otherwise, it is not religion at all. [ Continue reading: ] Offend Me Alt.Muslim offers a delightful guide to being Muslim and offended. There's Southpark. There're Muslim stand-up comedians. There're outdoor underwear ads... [ Continue reading: ] Jesus Down Under Conservative Christianity roared back into political fashion at last month's federal election... in Australia.... [ Continue reading: ] 'Bawler and Jumper' Dies The Rev. Billy James Hargis -- "a shouting, arm-waving, 270-pound elemental force whom Oklahomans called a 'bawl and jump' preacher," who might have matched Billy Graham in popularity if he'd talked about anything besides commies -- has been promoted to... [ Continue reading: ] W.'s Iran A religiously conservative leader whose intellectual qualifications are questioned by even some among his own party presses ahead nonetheless with a radical right agenda, undoing nearly a decade of progressive reforms to take his country back to where it was... [ Continue reading: ] One Market Under God There's red, there's blue, and then there's religion. Tom Frank, author of What's the Matter With Kansas, on what smug liberals don't get about God and how real leftists can talk about the true faith -- free marketeerism -- of... [ Continue reading: ] A Melvillean Note "[U]nless you are a believing Christian with strong fundamentalist leanings," writes Lee Siegel in New York, "you cannot truly understand Gilead," the second novel by Marilynne Robinson, author of Housekeeping, one of the great novels of the 20th century... [ Continue reading: ]  Scalia v. History Jeff Sharlet: My colleague Kathryn Joyce, who posted the item below about Supreme Court Justice Scalia's imaginative ideas about church and state, has a dry sense of humor. I, meanwhile, am the type to belabor the obvious. Just in case anyone didn't get it: Either Scalia is off his rocker, or New York Newsday, which reported on his remarks, is pulling a prank... [ Continue reading: ] You'll Be Safe With Us Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, speaking at an interfaith conference on religious freedom in an Orthodox, Manhattan synagogue that is home to America's oldest Jewish congregation, argued against the idea of a "religion-neutral government" with this logic: "'Did it turn... [ Continue reading: ] "Christiandar" John Bogert, columnist for a California paper, Daily Breeze, goes to see Billy Graham: "A couple of weeks ago I was stopped by a nice, smiling, inner-peace-loudly-showing couple wanting to know if I planned to see the Rev. Billy Graham's... [ Continue reading: ] And the Rivers Ran Red...With Soil Archaeologist may have found the skull of the oldest son of Rameses II, who is believed to be the ruler of Egypt during the time of the biblical story of the Exodus. If true, the skull was that of the... [ Continue reading: ] Episcopal Visitation In a move towards a looser Anglican federation, Canadian bishops have agreed to try a system of "flying bishops" to help keep the worldwide Communion from breaking apart over homosexual clergy, blessing same-sex unions, and the ordination of female priests.... [ Continue reading: ] Hate Lessons With Shmuley Celeb reb Shmuley Boteach, rabbi to Michael Jackson, tells the readers of the conservative WorldNetDaily that hatred has been demonized. Saddam down, Arafat in the grave... we're on a roll, here, baby, so don't stop now: "It is time for... [ Continue reading: ] Pacino's Passion The Merchant of Venice is coming to a theater near you, with Al Pacino as Shylock. James Shapiro, author of Shakespeare and the Jews and one of the definitive books on passion plays, is not happy. "'This is Mel Gibson's... [ Continue reading: ] Religion Didn't Fit in This Story As part of a series on the "children of Africa" (a sentimental ploy we'll forgive them for paying attention to Africa at all), The Boston Globe sent John Donnelly to Uganda, where he recounts in brutal, horrifying detail the story... [ Continue reading: ] Unclean Kabbalah The Detroit News reports on a "Kabbalah" outbreak in Michigan. Why the scare quotes? Because the New Age spirituality described uncritically in the article bears as much relation to Kabbalah as my Uncle Morrie, satin-jacket maker for the stars, did... [ Continue reading: ]  Our Christian Son-of-a-Bitch Far from Falluja there's another battle raging that's just as vicious and even more dangerous in its implications. But the American press is for the most part ignoring the civil war in West Africa's Ivory Coast, since it involves nobody, really, just Africans and the French. Which is why Douglas Farah's overview of the conflict in The Washington Post is especially welcome. Farah notes the anti-Muslim fervor of much of the violence -- the homes of Post employees who were Muslim were attacked while police looked on -- and the cynical exploitation of anti-colonialist sentiment by Ivory Coast's president, Lauren Gbago, a thug cut from the same cloth as that of Rwanda's genocidaires. But Farah neglects another aspect of Gbago's strategy: mobilization of evangelical Christian support, in Ivory Coast and abroad... [ Continue reading: ] "Christianity, Inc." A writer called "Shock," self-described as Christian and a formerly conservative evangelical, offers an intriguing analysis of Christian conservative groupthink at The Daily Kos, a liberal political site: "In my opinion, the problem with the church today is what I'll... [ Continue reading: ] What Jesus Would Do? Steve Unfreid, until recently the principal of an Alaskan Christian school, was fired after taking the unusual, "Christ-inspired," disciplinary measure of having himself whipped in front of two male students caught kissing girls in the school locker room. Unfreid says... [ Continue reading: ] Evangelizing Beslan Victims in Israel From Bartholomew's Notes on Religion: "Israeli Charities Help Neo-Pentecostals Evangelise Beslan Victims."... [ Continue reading: ] Render Unto Caesar No More Freedom of speech and freedom of worship are inextricably bound. Less obvious is the case for property rights as freedom of worship, but that doesn't stop the brave souls gathered by the Claremont Institute from arguing thus in Faith-Based, Not Bureaucracy Bound: How Religious Institutions Can Fight Government Regulations, a pdf document touted by several conservative websites right now... [ Continue reading: ] Poor Li'l Pitbulls Paranoia & rage: Scripps Howard News Service editorial policy director Jay Ambrose sees the victory of "moral values" and the defeat of gay marriage and senses a "new bigotry" in the air. Against gays and lesbians? Nah. Against poor li'l... [ Continue reading: ] Ratzinger's Full Circle Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who heads the Vatican's Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Inquisition) and who is considered the likely successor to the Pope, has indicted "secular Europe" as an anti-God continent that leaves... [ Continue reading: ] Ned's New Job Ned Flanders has a new job, editing Lark News, the "Christian Onion."... [ Continue reading: ] Ain't Science Cool? Scientists dispute the liklihood of the so-called "God gene," a reaction in the brain that would account for spirituality, and many religious people dismiss the idea that their faith is just a chemical quirk. But show the press a nifty,... [ Continue reading: ] NYT Hat Trick of Ignorance Adam Liptak's NYT report on Jerry Falwell's Liberty U. law school is a hat trick: Liptak mocks religious conservatives, dismisses religious liberals, and imposes a secular political spectrum on religious belief. Liptak notes that Falwell's male students try to make... [ Continue reading: ] Dead Cats of the Defiant South The AP's Kristen Gelineau reviews the state of Town Council prayers in Culpeper, Viriginia, in the aftermath of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' July decision, which ruled against invoking specific religions in public prayers after a Wiccan woman... [ Continue reading: ] Spending Bill Bears Cross Another unrelated item tagged onto the House's $388 billion spending bill (besides the backdoor anti-abortion measures) concerns a 43-foot cross on city land in La Jolla, California. The cross, which has been at the center of controversy for 15 years,... [ Continue reading: ]  A Different Species of Christian Conservative Jeff Sharlet: This is how much I like The New Pantagruel, an intellectual webmagazine that defies description but skews small-o orthodox Christian and literally conservative: I'm going to plug the latest article about the site even though TNP once published a wildly inaccurate review of my book that began by suggesting I be kicked in the balls. Well, for the sake of the argument, let's say I'm Christian: I forgive you, New Pantagruel. And am glad to see you getting ink. Latest example is a front-page profile of New Pantagruel editor Caleb Stegall, in the Lawrence Journal-World of Kansas. Stegall is a living rebuke to red-state, blue-state reductionism. A fierce opponent of abortion whose four children are homeschooled (by his wife, we presume; the article lapses into passive voice, making it difficult to say), he cites Ralph Nader and Wendell Berry as influences and believes that conservative Christianity should make environmentalism and urban planning top concerns. Of course, savvy conservatives have been catching on to environmentalism for awhile; Stegall takes it further by attacking the Republican economic principles that belittle environmentalist concerns. "To me," says Stegall, "the political right and left are to a large extent holding hands under the table. You can take the rhetoric of the pro-choice movement on the left and apply it to economic principles, and you have a George Bush speech." Whether that's true or not, Stegall is worth paying attention to: for his ideas, and as an example of an important but overlooked species of Christian conservative. [ Continue reading: ]  Crowds Irate at Seer's Failure to Die A Hindu seer, chief cleric of the Sriguru Ashram in east India, was berated by a crowd of 15,000, for failing to die after having declared that his soul would leave his body between 6 am and noon on Wednesday,... [ Continue reading: ] The Girl Scouts Told Me Via Open Book: Catholic school priest tells kids there is no Santa Claus.... [ Continue reading: ] Billy Graham's Last Crusade Billy Graham began his "last crusade" yesterday in Los Angeles, the site of his breakthrough, eight-week tent revival in 1949, which led to 3,000 conversions and launched Graham's evangelical career. Last night, 45,000 people showed up to L.A.'s Rose Bowl... [ Continue reading: ] Building a Common Voice: Catholics Join CCT The Bishops of the U.S. Roman Catholic Church have decided to join the broadest alliance of Christian churches in the country, the ecumenical coalition, Christian Churches Together U.S.A. (CCT). CCT, which was created with the help of the National Council... [ Continue reading: ] Pat and Ricky Say Love the Jews The Grand Prairie-based Messianic Jewish Bible Institute -- a "leadership training school for Jewish and non-Jewish followers of Jesus" -- gathered last night for their third annual banquet, and an evening of singer Ricky Skaggs, televangelist Pat Robertson, and a... [ Continue reading: ] No Country, No Medicine, No Chance Hannah Tinti writes: "I just found out that Edwidge Danticat’s uncle, who raised her while her parents were in the US, died last week while in the custody of Homeland Security. He was 81 years old, he had a valid visa to the US, he was a church pastor, and he was forced to flee Haiti after the UN used his church to stage an 'operation,' killing several civilians in the process... [ Continue reading: ] Infidel Democracy Ansar al-Sunna, an Iraqi Islamic group, posted a statement online warning Muslims not to vote in the upcoming elections, lest they "be branded as an infidel and 'punished in the name of God.'" The statement also threatened attacks against polls,... [ Continue reading: ]  The Truly Cool Don't The Louisiana ACLU has threatened the Governor's Office with legal action unless it stops violating a 2002 settlement over government funds to promote religion via its abstinence education website. The ACLU charges that the website violates the separation clearly by... [ Continue reading: ] Choose Your Battlefield While both Democrats and Republicans claimed victory in terms of the Jewish vote, Nathan Guttman of Haaretz finds that the mostly liberal Jewish community, which voted for Kerry and prioritized social justice, civil rights and the separation of church and... [ Continue reading: ] Partnering Schools Pt. 2 A group of 500 Christian men encircled a Philadelphia high school, that was the site of a recent teen shooting, in a prayer vigil mean to show "Christian solidarity against youth violence." Rev. LeRoi Simmons, one of the organizers of... [ Continue reading: ]  Tradition v. "Tradition" TWIRP ("The Woman Is Requested to Pay") Day is canceled in a small Texas school district, after a parent complained that the school Homecoming Week tradition of a "social-role reversal" encouraged cross-dressing and homosexuality. The Plano-based Liberty Legal Institute issued... [ Continue reading: ] God's Awful Music, Pure & Clean Patton Dodd: Evangelical Christians can be an anxious lot when it comes to popular music. We are fantastically worried about our status as cultural outsiders. We want to be in. We want to be relevant. But we know we are out. We fear we are irrelevant. We feel we have been given a terrible choice: either Michael Landon and Highway to Heaven, or Angus Young and Highway to Hell. [ Continue reading: ] Re-Translating the Bible In the beginning...the Bible sounded different. UC Berkeley professor, Robert Alter, discusses his major new translation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, which he intends to restore the syntax, style, meaning and numerous deleted "ands" of the... [ Continue reading: ] Clerical Abuse and the Bill of Rights in Maine A precedent-setting case was heard in Maine's Supreme Court Tuesday when a former alter boy, who was molested by a bishop in Portland's Catholic Church, asked the court to reverse a 1997 decision prohibiting religious organizations and their leaders from... [ Continue reading: ]  From Prophetic to Prosaic Last June, the National Association of Evangelicals' draft of new political guidelines for Christian civic engagement was rumored to be groundbreaking document that foretold a radical evangelical shift to the left. A closer reading of the draft made this interpretation... [ Continue reading: ] One for the Alliance Defense Fund? Robert Joos, a Missouri man who leads a small group of followers in the Sacerdotal Church of David, was jailed on a felony charge after his third arrest for driving without a license. Joos claims his religion forbids him to... [ Continue reading: ] Imperial Religion How does religion fare in the age of empire? Historian William Marina (writing, it should be noted, for The Independent Institute: a self-described "non-partisan" policy organization that's described by its critics as a Microsoft-funded right-wing think tank), reminds Blue-Staters flustered... [ Continue reading: ] Reality Religion From Nextbook's Steven Vider: "'I wanna bless their socks off,' says Ann Marie Doverspike, the persistently perky born-again California mom who moved in with the Eglys, 'Jews with horses' in rural Maryland, on Fox's Trading Spouses last night." [ Continue reading: ] Scout Law The Department of Defense has dropped its sponsorship of Boy Scout programs in the settlement of a lawsuit brought by the Illinois ACLU, which claimed the funding was unconstitutional because the Boy Scouts excluded people who wouldn't swear an oath... [ Continue reading: ] Official Notification of God's Word Last week two parishioners of the New Life Community Church in LeClaire, Iowa, 80-year old Helen Talbot and 73-year old Clarice Mizer, filed harassment complaints against their pastor, Rev. Tim Groves, who "hounded them" in phone calls and visits over... [ Continue reading: ] CW Says: "Communist" an Interfaith Insult Cardinal George Pell, who is also the Archbishop of Sydney, offended Australian Mufti, Keysar Trad, last month with comments comparing Islam to communism. Pell had remarked in a speech that secular democracies tended to cause the revival of intolerant religions,... [ Continue reading: ] Creating Critical Thought Grantsburg, Wisconsin School Board President, David Ahlquist, is once again involved in controversy after approving the teaching of "theories other than evolution" in public schools. Opponents say this will pave the way for teaching creationism, while the school board claims... [ Continue reading: ]  Cathedral of Hope Michael Piazza, the pastor of the world's largest gay church, Cathedral of Hope, has resigned from his post in order to lead a social justice activist group. Piazza's desire to devote himself to activist was reinforced by the anti-gay marriage... [ Continue reading: ] Presbyterians Receive Terror Threats The Presbyterian Church USA received a letter threatening arson attacks on churches while people were inside, unless the General Assembly changed its "anti-Israel and anti-Jewish" policies on the Middle East by today, November 15. The letter was postmarked from Queens,... [ Continue reading: ] Scripture vs. Scripturalism Gregory Grieve, a scholar of Hindu fundamentalism looks at American "moral values": The category of “moral values” was rhetorically powerful because it operated as an empty signifier, similar to Barthes' notion of "myth," onto which people are projecting their conceptions. As Barthes writes in "Myth Today": "The signifier presents itself in an ambiguous way: It is at the same time meaning and form, full on one side and empty on the other." What is it that gives this empty form authority? “Moral values” are empowered by "scripturalism," a pattern of mediation that represents texts as ahistorical... [ Continue reading: ] God Save the Queen Omri Elisha: In evangelical eyes, Dubya ain't Jesus -- he's Esther... [ Continue reading: ] Falluja the Widow "How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow." -- Lamentations, 1:1. Horrific American press reports from Falluja seem down peppy in comparison to coverage provided by the British press across... [ Continue reading: ] Margaret Mead Film Festival Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival at the Museum of Natural History in New York City. [ Continue reading: ]  Bar Mitzvah Lessons (Not) Learned Hasdai Westbrook, on Bar Mitzvah lessons: "Mr. Wolf fixed his gaze on me. 'I believe in God for one reason only,' he said. A pause for effect, a great suck of breath through the nostrils; then he started in again: 'I read in the paper about the Big Bang—you know what it is, everything starting from one big explosion with hot gasses and particles and so on. Scientists say this is the how the universe was created. This for me is not an explanation. Where did it come from?' He paused again. I had no answer. 'The only reason I believe in God is because I cannot explain the existence of the universe any other way.' He tapped out the last three words in the air, then hunched forward. 'But to say that because of this God cares if I eat milk and meat – this,' he said, finger pricked to the heavens, 'is bullshit.' So began Mr. Wolf’s assault on piety. He was a marvel, a revelation, and I his acolyte..." "Dreading the Buzzer: A Tale of God, Lies, and Audiotape" [ Continue reading: ] Pretty Damn Moral How moral is "moral"? Pretty damn moral. And why do those two terms belong side by side? According to Christianity Today's Ted Olsen, who crunches numbers from a Pew Poll, "moral values" were even more of a deciding factor in the election than exit polls suggest; and they really are about abortion and gay marriage. What "moral values" aren't about for most voters, however, is poverty. The center-right Christianity Today then points us to a two-fisted critique of far right believers by Barbara Ehrenreich, in The Nation no less. Right-leaning churches, argues Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, "have become an alternative welfare state, whose support rests not only on 'faith' but also on the loyalty of the grateful recipients." If you think that sounds good, think of the precedent: "The closest analogy to America's bureaucratized evangelical movement is Hamas, which draws in poverty-stricken Palestinians through its own miniature welfare state.... What makes the typical evangelicals' social welfare efforts sinister is their implicit--and sometimes not so implicit--linkage to a program for the destruction of public and secular services. This year the connecting code words were 'abortion' and 'gay marriage: To vote for the candidate who opposed these supposed moral atrocities, as the Christian Coalition and so many churches strongly advised, was to vote against public housing subsidies, childcare and expanded public forms of health insurance. While Hamas operates in a nonexistent welfare state, the Christian right advances by attacking the existing one." [ Continue reading: ]  The Good Reverend and Gay Rights "'Who succeeded in the great cultural battle over race and rights … those who could use religion to inspire solidarity and self-sacrificial devotion to their cause.'" Joe Crea, of Washington Blade, quotes author David L. Chappell on the function of... [ Continue reading: ] A Christian Tax Code "The dry tax code might seem the opposite of a values-rich opportunity; in fact, it is anything but." The Palm Beach Post's Jac Wilder VerSteeg tabulates the obvious red-state code, and obvious blue, to see what a Christian tax-payer should... [ Continue reading: ] Buddhist Dead Sea Scrolls Afghanistan's Minister of Culture will request the return of the 2000-year old "Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism" from the British Library, which admits that it has no idea how it came into possession of the earliest known Buddhist scripts. The... [ Continue reading: ] The Peaceful Pill Philip Nitschke, an Australian euthanasia advocate, has announced plans for a suicide pill that could be assembled at home with accessible ingredients and an instruction handbook. The "peaceful pill" is being rushed through development due to the prospect of legislation... [ Continue reading: ]  "Historical Ties" at Ashland U. In order to "reinforce historical ties," Ohio's Ashland University, founded by the Brethren Church, announces that they will only hire Christians and Jews as full-time faculty, and that only people "'of Christian faith and life'" will be eligible to serve... [ Continue reading: ] "Prophet" Seeks Bible Ban Defense lawyers in the Utah "pedophile prophet" case, concerning the kidnapping of then-14-year old Elizabeth Smart by self-proclaimed prophet Brian David Mitchell, have asked the judge to sequester jurors and ban Bibles from their hotel rooms, reports The NY Post.... [ Continue reading: ] The Revolution Will Never Die It's enough that people know there was an election, and that moral values carried it, for Jerry Falwell to announce the coming/still here evangelical revolution. The revolution will spring from Falwell's new organization, The Faith and Values Coalition (the un-catchily-named... [ Continue reading: ] Wasn't This a Movie? C. of E. choirboys strip for a naval-themed charity calender. While traditionalists bristle, the Portsmouth Bishop, Rt. Rev. Kenneth Stevenson, supports the calender and congratulated the lads on baring more than their souls.... [ Continue reading: ] Atheists, Singles and Grad. Students, Oh My! Our favorite logic-smashing Bush apologist, Dr. Paul Kengor, author of God and George W. Bush, socks it to Democrats by pointing out their heretical, godless supporters. "Which ought to be considered a greater liability for an American president: to receive... [ Continue reading: ] A North Carolina man, Michael Herman Vaughan, who has suffered from severe schizophrenia and psychotic delusions for over twenty-five years -- hearing warring voices from both God and the devil in his head, and sometimes believing himself to be Jesus... [ Continue reading: ] Learning from the Inquisition The Vatican announced yesterday that it will cooperate with Italy's Culture Ministry by opening more of its archives on the Inquisition in an unprecedented study of how the Church attempted to control religious beliefs and their effect on history. The... [ Continue reading: ] Coathangers in Kenya Intense debate over abortion broke out between religious activists and doctors in Kenya on Wednesday, at the start of the trial of Dr. John Nyamu, a doctor who has been charged with murder after 15 fetuses were found near Nairobi... [ Continue reading: ] Ashcroft v. Cancer Ward In a parting gesture, John Ashcroft asked the Supreme Court to authorize federal agents to pursue Oregon doctors who assist in the suicides of terminally ill patients under the state's 1994 "Death with Dignity Act." The law has popular state... [ Continue reading: ] How She Prays Thurs., 9 am eastern, Catholic conservative Amy Welborn on Relevant Radio, discussing her truly lovely book, The Words We Pray. [ Continue reading: ] Goodbye, Ashcroft, Ya Ol' Softie Newsweek on a new attorney general with new moral values: "[In] the debates that surrounded the development of the military tribunal policy down in Guantanamo... John Ashcroft was actually the voice of reason and Alberto Gonzales was lined up with... [ Continue reading: ] Muj V. Muj Killer We've seen no respectable press declare the fight in Falluja a holy war on both sides, but it's hard to avoid that conclusion. With no position taken on the right or wrong of the battle, we direct your attention to... [ Continue reading: ]  Let It Boil Bob Jones U. has a glorious message for Bush, lest he be tempted to the "paganism" of bipartisanship: "You owe the liberals nothing." Culture warriors reporting for duty! Or, as the Rev. Bob Jones, III -- a Stones fan, it... [ Continue reading: ] Drink Me Breaking news: Houston Chronicle op-ed reveals a previously undisclosed member of the axis of evil: liberalism, taken "captive" by the "evil ideology" of the left. How did the wicked left seduce its prey? "The left bewitches with its potions and... [ Continue reading: ] Can You See It? Diane Winston asks the question everyone's asking these days -- "If this battle is, as I suspect, as much for hearts and souls as for volunteers and votes, can the Democrats effect their own political resurrection?" -- and then this... [ Continue reading: ] Online Islam, Pt. 2 From Bene Diction, two updates or addenda to the Muslim online identity story below: an Iranian-Canadian blogger is receiving death threats for allegedly insulting Islam, and nine Iranian bloggers go to trial next week for "propagating against the regime, acting... [ Continue reading: ] The Christian Hanky Code An oldie, but a goody. Avoid theological misunderstandings with The Christian Hanky Code. (HT: TwistedChick.)... [ Continue reading: ] Online Identity In the wake of Theo van Gogh's murder, and an online discussion about discouraging young Muslims from becoming "Wahaboys," some critics lay the blame on multicultural tolerance and the power of internet websites to determine Muslim identity. The BBC's... [ Continue reading: ] Hoorah, King David! We'll do Irish Elk one better. Soldiers steeling themselves for battle with The Bloodhound Gang's "Fire Water Burn" is so last June. Kids about to be thrust into danger and killing in Fallujah today are listening to heavy metal Christian... [ Continue reading: ] Religious Specter's in the Press Social conservatives, put away that rope. Liberals, put away your false sense of security. Sen. Arlen Specter, media victim, would like everyone to know that he would never block a pro-life judicial nominee, and has in fact "sheparded through" controversial... [ Continue reading: ] Dubya Dance Center for Religion & Media member Michele R. Brown takes today's first prize for religion-in-public-sphere metaphor: "I was wondering how long it would be before this administration abandoned this newly activated batch of evangelical voters -- I think the resignation... [ Continue reading: ] Secularized Reporting Al-Jazeera cites an Iraqi reporter in Falluja who says half of the city's 120 mosques have been hit by U.S. air and tank strikes. American media has nothing: CNN reports that Iraqi troops under U.S. command are "searching" mosques; NYT... [ Continue reading: ] Who's the Boss? (Hint: It's Not Rove.) We're a couple days late on this crucial post-election reporting from The Washington Post's Alan Cooperman, but don't let our tardiness stop you from getting in the know. What's to know? Karl Rove may have determined that Bush needed a bigger evangelical vote to win, but it was the Christian right -- which The Revealer thinks the press should now define as the alliance of evangelicals, schismatic mainline Protestants, and cafeteria Catholics willing to make common cause with them -- that led, and the White House that struggled to keep up. Take gay marriage (or don't, as the voters determined). While centrist conservatives seek to sanctify their party's victory by distancing themselves from gay marriage bans (David Brooks, a gay marriage supporter, has been spinning this key issue out of the equation -- proving himself a "Bobo," after all), the real winners this year knew from early on that they had a potent weapon in, um, their hands. "Some Christian leaders perceived not only a threat to biblical morality, but also a winning political issue. Same-sex marriage 'is different from abortion,' said the Rev. Ronnie Floyd, pastor of First Baptist Church of Springdale, Ark. 'It touches every segment of society, schools, the media, television, government, churches. No one is left out.'" And now religious activists -- clergypeople and local political leaders are speaking up to say, We did this, not the GOP. "'They were the Johnny-come-latelies, if anything'" claims the Michigan state senator behind his state's gay marriage ban. What does it all mean? Base to the boss: Scoot over -- we'll be driving from now on. [ Continue reading: ]  Ashcroft & Evans To Pursue Solo Projects; Rummy Still With the Band John Ashcroft is done. So is Secretary of Commerce Don Evans. The left can be expected to crow about Ashcroft's departure and ignore that of Evans -- even though Ashcroft was never close to the President and is a member... [ Continue reading: ] Only Bush Understands Barry Goldwater biographer Rick Perlstein reports on some surprising numbers crunched by political scientist Phil Klinkner. Bush's support among heavy churchgoers in 2000 and 2004? Identical. Bush's support among wealthy voters? Big surge in '04. "It's the wealth, stupid," writes... [ Continue reading: ] Dangerous Prayers? Last week, a coalition group of labor and human rights activists/"prayer warriors" led a prayer session protest against a Nigerian ministry accused of ignoring union demands. The prayer warrior-workers, who were both Christian and Muslim, followed Mallam Abdullahi Danja Yahaya,... [ Continue reading: ] Violence in the Netherlands In the most severe instance of recent anti-Muslim violence in the Netherlands, a Dutch Muslim elementary school was damaged by a bomb Monday. The attack is likely retaliation for last week's murder of Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who... [ Continue reading: ] The Stem-Cell Revolt "Much as the emergence of 'partial-birth' abortions changed the political debate about abortion in a way that made 'pro-choice' absolutists seem unreasonable, the stem-cell issue pushes the extremes of the 'pro-life' position." Peter S. Canellos of The Boston Globe sees... [ Continue reading: ] Worst. Cult. Ever. An unnamed cult of German immigrants with ties to Chile's military dictatorship has broken decades of isolation in the aftermath of a child sex-abuse scandal involving their leader: WWII German army nurse, Paul Schafer, whose followers believed him to be... [ Continue reading: ] Dawkins' Evolutionary Tales "From Plato to Nato": Biologist Richard Dawkins on The Brian Lehrer Show now to discuss "a history of evolution in the form of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales."... [ Continue reading: ] Not Your Pilgrim's Puritanism It's not fascism, silly; it's 17th century old world Puritanism. The Guardian's George Monbiot sees antecedents to Bush's U.S. in European Puritanism, an English simplification of Calvinism which attracted the nouveau riche by forging a new theology that justified commerce... [ Continue reading: ] God of Gaza In what seems a literal take on Avirama Golan's description of life lived in the shadow of catastrophe and God's hands, an Israeli settler family in the Gaza strip is crediting God with saving their baby after an Arab mortar... [ Continue reading: ] God and Community Service at UW The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire is considering changing their community service requirement -- 30 hours of volunteer work students must complete before graduating -- to disqualify certain types of religious activities such as recruiting, preaching or volunteer projects that require... [ Continue reading: ] Hard Call in Falluja Embedded with the Marines attacking Falluja, The NYT's Dexter Filkins reports: "For a time, this frightening urban battlefield became a pulsing cacophony of strange and deadly sounds. The mosques in the city broadcast calls to jihad through their speakers." We've... [ Continue reading: ]  Gary Hart Preaches The prophetic voice of the moment comes from... Gary Hart? Who wouldda thunk? And yet here he is, talking some serious God and history on the op-ed page of the NYT, no less. "To participate in a discussion of 'faith'... [ Continue reading: ] Another Monkey Trial Can you take another Scopes-trial analogy? What if this one's accurate? Kristina Torres of the COX News Service reports on a federal case that begins today in Georgia, weighing arguments about how evolution -- or conversely, the alternative "Intelligent Design"... [ Continue reading: ] Go, Left, go! The mighty Left organizes... to block an appointment that already happened. Three times this morning we've received an email asking for support in opposing Bush's impending appointment of Dr. W. David Hager, author of a medical advice book called As... [ Continue reading: ] Protect (American) Personhood The anti-abortion group, American Life League, wastes no time calling for payments on the political capital they helped lend Bush, today calling for the president to support a "Personhood Proclamation," that would declare "the unalienable personhood of every American, from... [ Continue reading: ] "Think of him as your god." How do India's social conservatives deal with the prospect of gender equality or change in the family structure? In part, with the Manju Institute of Values' 3-month course, which trains Indian women to be the ideal wife who will focus... [ Continue reading: ]  Nothing Can Stop Us Now
 The Religious Right's Big Tent Q.: What does "religious right" mean if being religious, and on the right, isn't enough to qualify? Steven Waldman and John Green, two very knowledgable observers of American religious life, offer up some strange logic at Waldman's Beliefnet. Catholics and... [ Continue reading: ] Against Gay Marriage Michael Huang of Summa Dementia, a traditionalist Christian groupblog, takes up The Revealer's challenge by attempting to explain what his conservative co-religionists mean when they oppose gay marriage, and why he does himself. There's some shaky history in his response,... [ Continue reading: ]  You'll Know Us by Our Earbuds A California start-up called BiblePlayer offers free downloads of three different text versions of the Bible that can be stored and read on the screen of an iPod.... [ Continue reading: ] An Educational Opportunity The American Life League has issued a press release calling for the ousting and ostracism of Pamela Hayes, an openly pro-choice Catholic recently appointed to the U.S. Bishops' National Review Board. The bishops, said the ALL, have a "moral responsibility"... [ Continue reading: ] Got Spirit? A University of Georgia lawyer has asked a federal court to dismiss the civil rights lawsuit of Marilou Braswell, the former UGA cheerleading coach who claimed religious persecution after being fired. But according to the school, Braswell wasn't fired for... [ Continue reading: ] A Pre-11/2 Frame of Mind Joyce: Can it be that Democrats really lack this much capacity for introspection and processing tough truths that this is still the game plan: learn to stand up in a crowd and talk about your faith "in a convincing way,"... [ Continue reading: ] Pound of Flesh Why's denial dangerous? Well, here for a start: a right-wing Supreme Court, a reversal of Roe v. Wade and a federal gay marriage ban. If that sounds like lefty hysteria, don't take it from me. Take it from them: "'We're... [ Continue reading: ] Gay Marriage, GOP Secret Weapon Jeff Sharlet: My colleague Ann and I decided to tune out of the election coverage around 1:30 am. We left the friends with whom we’d been watching to walk to the F train the long way, crosstown and down Sixth Avenue through Greenwich Village. At W. 4th, a man staggered toward us from across the street. He looked drunk; he was dirty; and he wore an American flag t-shirt that didn’t come close to covering his belly. “Admit it, Democrat,” he bellowed, closing fast. “Bush won!” He shook a fist at us. “And now I’m gonna shove my whole f-----g fist up your Democrat ass!” [ Continue reading: ]  Canterbury Ale Monks and friars have long been among the best brewmasters, and the old heart of the Church of England, Canterbury Cathedral, has acknowledged that with the return of a "cathedral brew" to the church, not seen since 1828.... [ Continue reading: ] Ohio Schools Get God From the state that brought you the next four years...The Columbus, Ohio Public Schools Board of Education has altered their policies regarding the role religion may take in public schools. The new rules accomodate religious students in various ways that... [ Continue reading: ] Christ seen in Ghana Thousands of believers in Ghana's capital say they've seen Christ's face on the wall of a Catholic Church.... [ Continue reading: ] Something Happening Here... Investigating the Christian blogosphere in the November cover story of the Australian Salvation Army magazine WarCry, Jen Vuk wonders whether Christian bloggers are carrying forward the public debate missing from the mainstream Church (reprinted here with permission). While it's hard... [ Continue reading: ] The Paranoid Style in American Child-Rearing The fight's not over...says, um, Chuck Colson, who doesn't want Christian conservatives to sit on their laurels now that they've won the government. Colson, who last proposed that gay marriage in the United States could mobilize religious fundamentalists and lead... [ Continue reading: ] WCC: Shame The World Council of Churches, a body representing 342 Christian groups around the world (of all traditions save Catholicism), released a letter Wednesday, chiding U.S. member churches for depicting a partisan God and for using their churches to influence the... [ Continue reading: ] Everybody, Everywhere in His Hands My brothers and my sisters, the mountains and the rivers, you and me...yup: He's got the whole world in his hands. (They're well aware.)... [ Continue reading: ]  Not Tame Lions Make of it what you will: A 46-year old man was bitten at the Taipei Zoo after jumping into a lion's den in an attempt to convert the beasts to Christianity.... [ Continue reading: ] Myth Replacement Greg Grieve, a Fellow at NYU's Center for Religion and Media, comments: "[a colleague] and I have been talking about 'moral values' all morning. And it seems to us that it is working as an empty signifier, similar to Barthes' notion of 'myth,' onto which people are projecting their conceptions. As Barthes writes in 'Myth Today': 'The signifier presents itself in an ambiguous way: it is at the same time meaning and form, full on one side and empty on the other.' (117) As the Russian saying goes: 'A sacred space is never empty.' There seems to be a need for two steps: (1) to debunk the Myth of moral values, and then (2) to craft a new 'myth' that democrats can control for progressive ends." [ Continue reading: ] My Pastor, My Boss Christianity Today's Ted Olsen offers an erudite gloss on last Sunday's NYT Mag cover story on religion at work that in some ways is better than the feature itself, and that was good, too. Strangely missing from both feature and... [ Continue reading: ] The Value of Moral Values #1 issue for American voters overall? Exit polls say... "moral values." And, according to Cokie Roberts on NPR, 80% of moral valuing voters went for the President. But on the coasts, voters say... Iraq. War -- especially when and how... [ Continue reading: ]  For Those About to Rock Billboard: GOP would rather you did not rock the vote, thank you very much. Bush/Cheney evidently prefer punk: Ohio GOP poll challengers slam the vote.... [ Continue reading: ] Christian Right Packs It Up, Calls It A Day Liberals getting giddy -- and delusional. Village Voice, two hours ago, "What If Kerry Wins": "The Christian right would be done, at least for the time being. Look for the Christian Right to hightail it out of Washington, its anti-gay,... [ Continue reading: ] It's a Family Affair Hey -- did you switch your vote because of Osama? Well, quick, switch it back. Turns out Osama wasn't trying to meddle with the election. He was messing with his brother Yeslam's launch of his new perfume in Paris. Remember... [ Continue reading: ] Bizarro World! Eminem inspires Presbyterian preacher (see main story comments); cats and dogs are living together... Yea, apocalypse may be nigh. More reports of evangelicals giving up Bush's ghost, and now this: Jews pissed at hipster Jewsweek's endorsement of Kerry.... [ Continue reading: ] Religious Center Rising We're not fond of the way that the secular press has made Jim Wallis of Sojourners nearly the only public voice of leftist religious folk, but Wallis is worth paying attention to, especially today when he offers a reframing of... [ Continue reading: ] Mel Gibson's Election-Day Black List? Conservative site Free Republic is posting as news the two-days-stale info that Mel Gibson's campaigning against stem-cell research with the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, head of a conservative black Christian group that's also trumpeting it's "Black List" intended to "expose"... [ Continue reading: ] Where's Bush's Christian Base? Think you got the "God gap" handicapped this election? Think again. We've been bringing you news of conservative Christians and Christian conservatives abandoning the Bush base, but now we can point you in the direction of something really substantive -- even, we dare say, revealing. The New Pantagruel is an intellectual, orthodox Protestant journal with a pop culture edge; The NYT suggested that it, not The Weekly Standard, may have inherited The National Review's legacy of sharp right-wing thinking. But that's too simple. To wit: To help their readers cast their votes, they bring together four very unorthodox, orthodox Christian scholars. All four are socially conservative, staunchly opposed to abortion, skeptical of "dual income" families. And all four seem economically radical, committed to replacing "corporate capitalism" with something better -- Christianity, I'm guessing. So, yadda, yadda, yadda -- who are they voting for? Well, all four were Nader voters in 2000. Nader's not getting their votes this time. Who is? If you're Christian or if you're not, do yourself a favor and tune out the TV for awhile to find out... [ Continue reading: ] Eagle Scout Slays Atheist We take a break from the election to call your attention to a succinct, perversely funny, brilliantly-narrated, near-perfect piece of religion journalism in The Detroit Free-Press: Eagle Scout slays atheist.... [ Continue reading: ] I Knew Moses, and You, Mr. Bush, Are No Moses Evangelical conservatives abandoning Bush? A popular email daily devotional with an claimed readership of 3 million just arrived in our email: "The choice for President has ultimately boiled down to a matter of restraining God's wrath... Instead of seizing the... [ Continue reading: ] Bush v. World, and God is no Help Spanish El Mundo breaks tradition of not endorsing foreign candidates to back Kerry. When it comes to Bush, they seem to have a God problem: "Bush has become a messianic governor, surrounded by some advisers who think the same way... [ Continue reading: ] Evangelical Outpost Sees Evil Evangelical Outpost doesn't admire Eminem's "Mosh" as much as we do. In fact, he thinks Em is as bad as Osama, or worse -- Michael Moore. A Christian perspective on an unholy media trinity.... [ Continue reading: ] Kerry's Big Pagan Outreach Effort Pays Off 13 reasons Pagans are voting -- overwhelmingly for Kerry. Pagan blogger Jason Pitzl-Waters decrees, "So Vote it Be." (That's a Pagan pun.)... [ Continue reading: ] A Little Something for the Nuts Focus on the Family is pulling out tin hat vote scare tactics, warning readers that there's a national ID plan in the works -- if certain "one world government" types get into office, presumably.. Given Dr. James Dobson's decision to... [ Continue reading: ] Jesus Don't Vote Christian intellectual leader Alisdair MacIntyre is taking it easy today: "The way to vote against the system is not to vote."... [ Continue reading: ] I Confused Bush With Jesus and All I Got Was This Wingnut T-Shirt This helpful t-shirt will help God zap the idolators at the polls today.... [ Continue reading: ] The Soundtrack of Right Now If you haven't watched Eminem's new video, watch it here. If you're a Kerry voter and think you already know all about it, ditch your party colors and play it again. If you're a Bush voter and think you can't take it, stick your politics in your hat and study it. Sure, it's partisan. More interestingly, it's religion... [ Continue reading: ]  Gimme That Old-Time Moral Clarity More moral clarity on true evil. Matthew Yglesias reports, "Rep. Peter King, one of our moderate' Republicans, just said on 'Crossfire' that there's a 'new axis of evil' composed of "UN bureaucrats, The New York Times, and Dan Rather.'"... [ Continue reading: ] Green Bay Bishop: Gay Marriage #1 Election Issue The Bishop of Green Bay wants Catholics to get cozy with Christ inside the voting booth. Declaring that abortion and gay marriage -- especially the latter -- outweigh the little things, such as war and money, he was stumping hard... [ Continue reading: ] Kerry Against Abortion? Crisis, the hard-right Catholic magazine helmed until recently by Bush's Catholic GOTV pointman, Deal Hudson -- since outed as a serial sexual predator -- reveals a genuinely confusing statement from Kerry: "In a Thursday interview with Univision -- the popular... [ Continue reading: ] Hi, This is Karl Rove. I'd Like You to Vote for Gay Marriage. See "The Marriage Campaign," above; then read this. AP reports that unknown Kerry opponents are trying to spur anti-gay marriage voters to the polls with phony phone calls for gay marriage purporting to be from the Kerry campaign. Some pundits... [ Continue reading: ] Not In the Stars "'It is cosmic writ that George W. Bush cannot become president of United States again.'" Indian "emperor of astrologers," Lachhman Das Madan, sees a Kerry win.... [ Continue reading: ] Cemetaries Desecrated in France As Roman Catholics celebrate All Saints Day, Catholic tombs in a French cemetary were vandalized, marking the second cemetary attack of the weekend, after Jewish tombs were desecrated on Saturday with swastikas, the initials "SS," and other racist inscriptions.... [ Continue reading: ] Selling "Stolen Honor" We're getting reports that Christian television broadcasters around the country are making last minute pushes for Bush by showing all or part of "Stolen Honor," the factually faulty anti-Kerry documentary. We're curious about this conflation of faith and politicking --... [ Continue reading: ] Freestyle Powwow? With more Get Out the Vote movements than can be counted, and 100% Church drives, a predictable amount of space is going to predicting how evangelicals will vote tomorrow. Some conservative Christians, like SBC's Richard Land and James Dobson say... [ Continue reading: ] The Marriage Campaign Anti-gay marriage proposals may draw voters to the polls on Nov. 2, but the media storms that surround them drives democracy out of the story, writes Jason Boog. "I was furious when the Catholic Church tried to tell my hometown parish how to vote. They played a tape-recorded homily by Detroit’s Cardinal Adam Maida one Sunday, urging Michigan Catholics to support Proposal 2 this Tuesday, a marriage-ban ballot proposal that reads: 'The union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union.' But until this year, Michigan gay activists weren’t really trying to win the right to marry..." [ Continue reading: ] Political Pulpits Every big paper has a round-up of politicized pulpits from yesterday. We think The Los Angeles Times' is the best, though like all of them it suffers from an overly literal approach to sermons. Beyond the hints and innuendos, there's... [ Continue reading: ] Questions of Faith Ben Daniel: Even at this late date, with the election just days away, our knowledge of the beliefs of George W. Bush and John Kerry remains incomplete. Seldom have the candidates been asked tough questions about faith and the role it plays in forming public policy, and when such questions have been raised, the answers have been dissatisfying... [ Continue reading: ] Escaping the Weird Mundane The streets of my Brooklyn neighborhood are appropriately eerie this Halloween night, nearly empty of people and filled with the sound of leaves rasping across the sidewalk. Even the late night bodegas are closed, shuttered with steel curtains they lower only once a year. The evidence of the wars that raged earlier in the evening is everywhere, broken eggs and shaving cream trails, but the only person I come across is a bum sitting with a stack of newspapers, sending pages into the wind one by one as if to compete with the leaves. Standing in front of my building, I look up at the few dim stars you can see above Brooklyn, and I stare at them for a long while, a luxury I wouldn't take on a busier night, when people are passing. Then I come inside, and sit down at my computer, and return to the weird mundane that that is the media one day before the election. It's all down to stargazing now -- reading signs, following slight shifts, perceiving patterns, declaring this or that with authority. It's astrology disguised as astronomy, with neither the imagination of the former nor the intellect of the latter. Looking, not seeing. Counting, tabulating, processing -- but not knowing. And amidst all this jumble, by way of yet another wonky blog, I stumble on this radio interview with Real Live Preacher, and listen to just the end, a three minute story about constellations. Hokey as hell and perfect for the evening; a parable of vision and knowledge and the hard bargains one makes between them. -- JS [ Continue reading: ] |
