Tag: CATHOLICISM

Whose Heaven is for Real? Or, Jesus Looks A Lot Like Kenny Loggins

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Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back by Todd Burpo, Sonja Burpo, Lynn Vincent, Colton Burpo (Thomas Nelson, 2010)

by Mary Valle

Perhaps all you really need to know about this book is that it is for sale at my local discount supermarket, the un-mellifluously named Industrial Food Product Outlet, a place I only visit when it’s absolutely necessary, if I need some generic famotidine for the dog (sensitive stomach!), long fireplace matches, or pineapple juice for making Huli-Huli Tofu (Trader Joe’s doesn’t have it and it’s way too expensive at Whole Foods). The IFPO, or the ‘Po as they’ve tried to rebrand themselves, is one of the circles of hell; naturally it has a swivel-mounted book rack of “inspirational” tomes. ‘Cause we humans didn’t build florescent-lighted boxes of doom or synthesize plastic-wrapped carcinogenic food products or make a world where you have to burn petroleum just to get to said ‘Po. Oh no. It’s all part of God’s plan.

The cover of Heaven is for Real depicts a small boy, smiling, in a flattop and an extremely ill-fitting short-sleeved white shirt, baggy yellow sweater vest, and dark, baggy pants. I can feel the squeaky acrylic of the small boy’s vest just by looking at the photo. It’s probably already in a landfill. Continue Reading →

JFK Loved LDS, You Should Too!

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Kelly Smurthwaite at ksl.com writes that while prominent news outlets are citing the Mormon faith of two GOP hopefuls, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman Jr., as a potential “weakness,” “prominent politicians and presidents of the United States have spoken in favor of members of the LDS faith, stating the good that members of the church have done in the world, their country, their communities and their homes.”  Take John F. Kennedy for instance (who famously received criticism for being Catholic and disavowed any desire to govern like one).

Smurthwaite’s article is quite accurate, of course, if not a bit earnest in it’s effort to give a good account of the unnecessarily persecuted Mormons as upright, good Americans.  I would speculate that a majority of Americans would agree, when you get down to it.  Funny undergarments, maybe.  But hell, they’re pioneers.  Just like the rest of us — or perhaps better, if you watch the LDS ad campaign from last year. Continue Reading →

Haitian Spirits: A Photo Essay by Les Stone

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introduction and curation by Abigail Ohlheiser

They’re women and men (but mostly women) bathed in light, bathed in water, eyes to the sky, some touching and wearing crosses. They’re possessed by spirits, dancing on dirt floors, fire in their mouths. Vodou in Haiti is like Catholicism, but not. Karen Brown wrote in her evocative book, Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn, that “Vodou Spirits, unlike the Catholic saints whose names they borrow, are characters defined by contradiction. The Vodou spirits represent the powers at work in and on human life.” Continue Reading →

Democracy and Faith

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From Jan-Werner Müller’s article in the November/December Boston Review titled, “Making Muslim Democracies”:

In the case of Christian Democracy, believers needed to be convinced that the party had not sold out to secularism (of which liberal democracy seemed merely one symptom); nonbelievers needed assurance that religiously inspired parties would not abandon state neutrality in religious affairs once in power, and that the pronouncements of a Maritain did not constitute a kind of “double discourse,” with different messages for believers and nonbelievers. It was a delicate balancing act. Maritain managed it, partly because the rather vague philosophy of personalism suggested a third path not only between individualism and communism, but also between religion and secularism.

Thus did Christian Democrats create a unique set of principles that both believers and nonbelievers could follow. The moderation of Christian Democracy was not just the result of day-to-day politics. Rather, a long-term process of scholarship and debate helped create a group of parties that appealed to voters not by being arbitrarily centrist, but by making widely agreeable proposals based on Christian values. Continue Reading →

Religious Studies in Illinois

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An excerpt from the letter that Dr. Kenneth J. Howell sent to his University of Illinois “Introduction to Catholicism” students in preparation for a test, below.  After a student anonymously complained that the letter constituted “hate speech,” Dr. Howell was removed from his position.  Alliance Defense Fund has taken up a law suit against the university on behalf of Dr. Howell, claiming that he was fired for his religious beliefs. Continue Reading →