An Oklahoma court has cleared the way for Methodist clergyman Keith Cressman to sue the state over his objection to imagery on that state’s license plate. The new license plates carry a photo of a statue called “Prayer for Rain,” of an Apache man shooting an arrow into the sky. His 2011 lawsuit in U.S. [...]
I knew that “St. Jehoshaphat” (or “Josaphat” of “Baarlam and Josaphat”) came from bodhisattva, but here is more about the Norse tale of the Buddha. The comments are interesting too.
The real-estate supplement of the Taos News this week carried an article titled “Five Must-Haves for a Beautiful Backyard.” Oddly enough, four of the five items* were available at the store owned by a person interviewed for the story. “Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, is one of our most popular statues,” [...]
Went to town with M. today—it’s our secular Sunday routine of coffeehouse brunch, newspapers (v. trad, that’s us), and then the laundromat and the grocery store. The coffeehouse is owned by (extremely low-key) Christian ex-missionaries. I had checked the Facebook page to see if they were closing today for Easter — nothing posted there one [...]
• Unitarians squirming over polyamory: But as the issue of same-sex marriage heads to the Supreme Court, many committed Unitarians think the denomination should have a position, which is that polyamory activists should just sit down and be quiet. For one thing, poly activists are seen as undermining the fight for same-sex marriage. The UUA [...]
• Joseph P. Laycock, ” ‘We Are Spirits of Another Sort’: Ontological Rebellion and Religious Dimensions of the Otherkin Community,” Nova Religio 15, no. 3 (2012): 65–90. DOI: 10.1525/nr.2012.15.3.65 • Venetia Laura Delano Robertson, “The Beast Within: Anthrozoomorphic Identity and Alternative Spirituality in the Online Therianthropy Movement,” Nova Religio 16, no. 3 (2013): 7–30. [...]
A report from Public Radio International on the Brazilian Spiritist religion of Umbanda focuses on a same-sex couple and conflicts with evangelical Christians.
No, this is not the judgment of one of the usual (Pagan) suspects. It is a tangent spun off a column by Rod Dreher, who comments frequently on ecclesiastical matters. He was raised a southern Protestant, converted to Roman Catholicism, left that church over the sex-abuse scandals, and is now an Orthodox Christian — although [...]
From the opinionated and entertaining blog Beauty Tips for Ministers, a link to a site examining the beard styles of Christian clergymen. The thing is, I think I see some Pagan bloggers here as well.
To begin with, there were just a handful of them. And some are going silent, as Cara Schulz writes for the Pagan Newswire Collective: The situation in Syria appears to be more grave, according to the last messages I received from the five Pagans I chat with regularly. They spoke of the fighting and how [...]
