holidays

Recent analyses of religion in the 99% Movement tend to begin with a focus simply on pluralism, asking how diverse forms of religious transcendence—particularly in justice-minded congregations—have aligned themselves with the still-growing wave of Occupations. But the intimacy of life in a park or along a sidewalk is causing traditions to do something more than “coexist” plurally. Religions are colluding and combining.

In light of recent events in the small Israeli town of Beit Shemesh, many in the modern Jewish world have argued the haredim (ultra-Orthodox) have crossed a line.

What do Pope Benedict XVI and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain have in common? They both have a thing for Krampus.

We wouldn’t have wine, and Israel would be really different.

So what is the connection between devouring children and a superabundance of grain?

Elsewhere on the interwebs, people have considered which religious figures would or would not be joining the drum circle at their local Occupy encampment, were they alive today. Jesus? Ghandi? But what about other religious figures? A religion-nerdy parlor game…

One sign of success is leaving your mark on society, making an impact; being famous brings you out of the anonymous masses and bestows celebrity, a status that affords you to an afterlife that most will never achieve; individual biographies of lives lived are more compelling than questions of postmortem judgment or the possibility of reincarnation—these lists of the dead convey profound lessons about what counts in life to the living in twenty-first century America. And nothing teaches a profound moral lesson like a corpse.

Thursday morning a dozen occupiers addressed forty or so clergy. We clergy were all somewhat skeptical of the demand for public space. You could hear the ministerial, rabbinical hrumph, hrumph in the room. (Most of us had never occupied Zucotti Park and a downward trend in temperature wasn’t going to improve on that.) But the occupiers edged toward the theological as they articulated a need for communal, inspirational, face-to-face contact in which they could “appear” to one another.

The loss of a brilliant religion scholar.

Some history on the historian.