Though Chabad and the fashion industry both have an idealized vision of women that's often confusing, one cuts deeper. Fashion is a form of entertainment, but religious institutions are places of refuge.
Ultimately, organized religion is on the way out. The only thing that could prevent this from happening would be a sharp decline in global standards of living, which would require some form of ecological collapse.
In the end, I don't know what motivated O'Donnell to explore witchcraft or why she eventually turned to a conservative form of Christianity. Perhaps she needed to "dabble" a bit in order to find her way.
Letting go of control is about loosening our grip, allowing ourselves to be supported and trusting that things will turn out as they are meant to. Four ways to just let go.
There have to be some religious people who understand that what is holy, which some call God, is big enough to hold Allah and Jesus, Muhammad and Moses, Vishnu and Buddha.
Khamemi savve jive Savve jiva khamantu me Mitti me savve bhuesu Veram majaham na kenai I ask for forgiveness from all living beings; May all living beings grant me forgiveness. My friendship is with all living beings; I have hostility towards none.
"This is a great moment where humankind literally can pass through a critical threshold and create a higher version of itself."
For centuries people have walked out of synagogue thinking "Boy I'd like to tell the Rabbi a thing or two about that sermon." But now the sermons are online, the Facebook page is available, and that congregant can offer a piece of her or his mind
Last week, the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics issued the final birth statistics for 2007. They reported that in 2007, there were 4.3 mil...
A few years back I was in Tokyo for a Japanese P.E.N. conference on art and disaster. The theme focused on how art flows from the human response to ca...
Imagine a world in which every student attending a secondary and post-secondary institution across the United States was instilled with a basic understanding of the world's great religions.
I have been noticing the increasing tendency to equate the term "religious" with "Christian," and "Christian" with "Evangelical Christian." It is important to point out that such such an equation is not only incorrect -- it is dangerous.
Faith lingers, one way or another, in every society. For those who have given up on Christianity, there's a newly coined term, "cultural Christian," to describe the half-hearted believer or the timid atheist.
Writing with accountability and reading with a sense of responsibility on the Web would form a compact between author and reader, providing a strong "formula" upon which to base our mutually constructed and shared social state.
Dragonflies tend to turn up at times in my life that I would describe as liminal -- threshold moments when you stand in the doorway between what your life was before and what it will be.
Nine years ago, when I spent five minutes and $10 becoming duly and legally ordained online, it was a lark (and provided fodder for my very first religion column.) I really never expected to use it.
The church is no longer part and parcel of the national political identity anywhere. Not in Poland, in Ireland, not even in Italy. Clearly the church will be forced to deal with the effects of all these things, and more
Food is now largely produced by huge corporate, industrialized farms hundreds or thousands of miles away from consumers. As our relationship to food dramatically changes, faith traditions are speaking up.
We live as if the causes and the solutions to our problems are somehow outside of ourselves and that they are beyond our ability to resolve. This view of the world inevitably leads to resignation.
Volunteer service is a way for individuals to create a tangible and visible difference in our communities and in the world. However, there are certain limits to what we can do and the impact that we can have.
Secular Fundamentalism is no more consistent with what it claims as its roots than Religious Fundamentalism is consistent with its own roots. And neither allows the other to have a real conversation.
Like any powerful tool, faith can help us to build our world or destroy it. The issue is not whether we have faith, but how we use whatever faith we possess.
I'm in Rwanda, winding south from the capital, Kigali, toward a village called Banda. Banda is on the edge of Nyungwe National Park, one of the last ...
Question: Do you like that you're known as "The People's Author?" Anne Lamott: I can honestly say there is nothing I would rather be known as than "T...
The tenth solo album by Alejandro Escovedo, Street Songs of Love, will be released on Tuesday, June 29. The same night he'll stride on stage at the fi...
