Santa And World Religions

A person shouldn't have to pander to a white man - sit on his lap and beg, even! - to enjoy the good life. ... If Santa were a refugee, or a woman of color, or even a plant or animal, I could probably get on board.
He is "in direct competition with God, and it seems Santa may have the upper hand." "They're both invisible characters that appear from time to time," Jenell Paris continues, "so how does a Christian parent convince a child that God is really real (especially if you once told the child, My eldest son from an early age was a Santa skeptic - the Christopher Hitchens of his elementary school set. Having spied out our Christmas preparations, he delighted in dashing the illusions of other children, It is true that the Thomas Nast version of Santa Claus is the same pale shade as Bull Connor. Yet perhaps even mythical figures should be judged, not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character - which, in this case, seems pretty admirable.
Christmas hasbecome a kind of alternative religion, offering watered-down versions of profound theological doctrines. Its miracles are found on 34th Street, not in Bethlehem. The visitation of Gabriel has become the visitation of Clarence, assuring us that it is a wonderful life. The modern cult of Christmas offers a domesticated form of transcendence. Naughty or nice instead of good or evil.
Believers often assert that other religious traditions are simply wrong and inherently dangerous, worthy of attention only to condemn or debunk. Buddhism to Aztec human sacrifice to Quakerism to Wahhabi Islam - are equally true. Religious differences are not trivial. But most faiths share a similar striving. Across the world and across history, human beings have been hounded by an instinct to seek meaning beyond the material - a desire for forgiveness, acceptance, holy awe and ethical behavior. This search takes many forms and faiths, from animism to Zoroastrianism. If the instinct is not merely a cruel evolutionary joke, the practice of religion has produced varied insights and wisdom.
If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view.

Its tacky materialism can be unattractive. But the desire for Christmas miracles and visiting angels - for Tiny Tim not to die and for hooves on the rooftop and for George Bailey to be the richest man in town, a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." In this argument, the sentimental desires of Christmas are hints and rumors and reminders of a birth that somehow represents their culmination.

Religions News Redux

KELLY BAKER
I have missed over the past couple of weeks, I was impressed by all the religion news stories that ranged from the religious beliefs of presidential contenders to sacred drinking water to reviews of new religion documentaries. Newsweek, in particular, has presented quite a few articles on religion and politics that have analyzed not only Romney's faith speech but also the religious lives of Guiliani and Huckabee. The editor of Newsweek, Jon Meacham, wrote a cover story entitled.
2008 Republican Iowa caucuses have descended into a kind of holy war. The clash centers on issues that are, in Saint Augustine's phrase, ever ancient, ever new: the nature of God, the disposition of power and the sanctity of conscience. The skirmish pits Huckabee against Romney in a story of hardball politics and high-minded history.
He writes:
Romney would have been on safer ground had he said that America has always been largely religious and largely free, and that America's religious traditions should fight for the freedom of all, if only out of self-interest. Without freedom of conscience, today's tyrant could be tomorrow's tyrannized, and the other way round. With freedom of conscience, we come closer to living out the promise Washington made in his 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, R.I., in which he said that the government of the United States was "to give to bigotry no sanction.
CHRISTIAN LEADER, which is descriptive. There's another slide that [quotes Time magazine saying] ONE OF AMERICA'S BEST GOVERNORS. How come nobody asks me about that? It's perfectly fair to ask, "What did you mean by Christian leader, Lisa Miller documented the rise of sacred drinking water and its consumption. Various companies have marketed their water that is blessed by priests, has good "sound energy" because it was bottled near a Tibetan singing bowl, or has prayers printed on the bottle that puts (water) drinkers in a good frame of mind. Not surprisingly, there has been backlash by religious believers, The description of Fatica says a lot: the pumped-up proselytizer—he looks more like a white rapper than an evangelist—sports a tough Jersey accent and a swagger that would make Tony Soprano proud. He screams, taunts and humiliates half-filled rooms at spiritual retreats across the country, hoping to "motivate" teens into accepting Jesus into their lives. Though his ministry, called Hard as Nails, is aimed at Catholic teens, he sounds like an evangelical. His tactics include drill-sergeant-like assaults: "If you sin, you better have the courage to bash Jesus' face in!" Fatica screams at one cherubic girl, pushing her to the verge of tears. "Have you sinned in the last 24 hours? Have ya?! HAVE YA?!" Fatica wants his disciples to feel the pain that Christ suffered for their sins. At one session, a kid picks up a metal folding chair and whacks Fatica—at his direction—on the back, as the minister repeatedly screams to another supplicant.
I wonder how different his approaches are to those of similar evangelical teen ministries. One recent fascination is the advent of Life Teen Masses at Catholic churches, in which Catholic teens sing along with religious rock music, and the message is purportedly "hip" for teens. They seem to have an evangelical bent to me, but I wonder what it really means. Are these methods effective to evangelizing the younger set, Catholic or Protestant.peoples, ideas and products are covered by the news media. The religious lives of presidential contenders, anything that is slightly evangelical, or any religious consumption always seems to be fair game, which possibly means the mundane lives of everyday believers are just, well, too mundane for coverage.