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Rod Dreher

Just got word that my dear friend and godfather Vladimir Grigorenko today became an American citizen. He is the iconographer at St. Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral in Dallas — pictured above — and an emigre from Ukraine. Vladimir was raised without religion in the former Soviet Union, but converted to Christianity as an adult. Trained as…

Rome does not like ‘Avatar’. From the NYT report: The newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, wrote that “Avatar,” which stars Sam Worthington, right, “gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature,” according to The A.P. Vatican Radio said the movie “cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of…

While we’re talking about the unseen value of native religions, David Brooks reminds us in his column today that a big part of Haiti’s problem is voodoo. Excerpt: Why is Haiti so poor? Well, it has a history of oppression, slavery and colonialism. But so does Barbados, and Barbados is doing pretty well. Haiti has…

Sharon Astyk has been reading a guy who points out that there are a lot of people who talk about how great it would be if we had community instead of a mass society of individuals, but who don’t want to make the sacrifices necessary to have a real community. She agrees, but points out…

I’m on a Wade Davis kick this week, so I do apologize for the repetition in this week’s blogging of these themes of religion, truth, and culture. But I find this stuff engaging at the moment, and appreciate your comments as I try to think through it. Let me commend to your attention the book…

It’s not science, religion, the market or morals, but I gotta ask: Conan or Jay? I don’t watch either one, and I really don’t care, though it should be said that Jay Leno has a professional reputation as a genuinely decent man. My instinct is to side with Conan O’Brien because I find his sensibility…

Today in New York, I paid a visit by the Beliefnet mothership, and said hi to some of the great people who bring you this here blog. I’ll admit, it surprised me that they have upended bottles of Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame in the office water coolers, and it was pretty startling to see…

I apologize for having been away from the keys all day. I’m in New York doing Templeton stuff, and haven’t been able to find a wifi connection at the places I’ve been. I woke up this morning to the terrible news from Haiti. The latest from the NYT: Calling the death toll “unimaginable” as he…

Excerpt from a more recent TED talk by Wade Davis — the entire thing is in the video above — reflecting on the meaning of the worldwide web of religious knowledge: And if we slip from the realm of the sea into the realm of the spirit of the imagination, you enter the realm of…

Utterly fascinating report from Ethan Watters, writing in The New York Times. Excerpt: In any given era, those who minister to the mentally ill — doctors or shamans or priests — inadvertently help to select which symptoms will be recognized as legitimate. Because the troubled mind has been influenced by healers of diverse religious and…
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