Dick Staub
Dick Staub is an author at Religion News Service.
All Stories by Dick Staub
COMMENTARY: The good amidst the bad
By Dick Staub — July 10, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) I asked my 8-year-old granddaughter what she likes most about living in California after moving to Burbank eight months ago. “My friend Kelly is a really good researcher,” she told me, “and she thinks Hannah Montana is moving to Burbank.” I fear she has already succumbed to the celebrity […]
COMMENTARY: Troubles in the village
By Dick Staub — June 27, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) By now, everybody has probably heard the sad tale about the pregnant teens of Gloucester, Mass. In a high school that usually records four pregnancies annually, this year they’ve already recorded 17. None of the expectant mothers is older than 16. At least half of the girls, described as […]
Here come the brides _ May the Force be with them
By Dick Staub — June 13, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) So I’m sitting around with some younger friends the other day and we start talking about what songs were played at their weddings. At Josh and Rena’s wedding, they marched down the aisle to Queen’s version of the “Wedding March” and left the church to the Beatles’ “She’s So […]
RNS Daily Digest
By Dick Staub — May 30, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) I never thought I’d say the names Sharon Stone and John Hagee in the same sentence, but in this media age, the lines between bombastic televangelist and beauteous Hollywood celebrity are blurring. At a Cannes Film Festival press conference, there was Stone, in all her radiant glory, offering her […]
COMMENTARY: Oprah’s new guru
By Dick Staub — May 15, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) In a self-help age, it should not surprise us that self-improvement guru Oprah Winfrey would find a spiritual guru obsessively attentive to the self. Eckhart Tolles is a slightly built, quiet, self-described recluse. His best-selling “The Power of Now” caught Oprah’s attention, and the two discuss his newest title, […]
Wholly human
By Dick Staub — May 2, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) I awoke this morning with a lot to do and one thing on my mind. My waking thought was a simple phrase: “The whole point.” Why “The whole point”? Maybe because I’ve been observing how few people experience wholeness in this fragmented age. I’ve been thinking a lot about […]
COMMENTARY: All God-talk, all the time
By Dick Staub — April 18, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) “You are the first American I’ve met who talks intelligently about religion as a dominant, shaping force in your nation.” That’s what a businessman from Bombay told me 20 years ago while we stood chatting at the check-in counter at a hotel in Istanbul. (And lest you think me […]
Have you been tested for nomophobia?
By Dick Staub — April 4, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The 21st century has produced a new illness: “no mobile phobia” (also known as nomophobia), the fear of being out of mobile phone contact. Researchers in the U.K. report that 13 million Brits suffer from this stressful condition brought on by the fear that their phone will lose its […]
Joel Osteen tops best-seller list: RNS Religion Best-Sellers List
By Dick Staub — March 21, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) For a man trying to downplay messianic expectations, a speech on race, politics and religion aimed at “a more perfect union” might seem ambitious, yet this was the organizing theme of Barack Obama’s speech this week. After revelations of controversial statements uttered by Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah […]
COMMENTARY: No more Mr. Nice Guy
By Dick Staub — March 7, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Where did this idea originate _ that Christianity is about being “nice”? It is an odd outcome and irrational progression from Jesus, whose very arrival on earth threatened to overturn everything: the Roman Empire, the Jewish religious powers and most significantly, the lives of every human on earth. Essayist […]
Jewish congregations renew interest in retreats
By Dick Staub — February 22, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) If “art is the language of the soul,” as Robert Redford said at the Sundance Film Festival this year, I look at the “souls” of most of the Academy Award nominees for best picture and see dead people. Since the 1960s, film has increasingly been the place where we […]
GUEST COMMENTARY: A survival guide for interfaith couples
By Dick Staub — February 8, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Politicians and preachers share at least one thing in common _ words are their primary currency, and in the estimation of many, most of them are trading more in words than in action. As a former talk show host, who also writes, podcasts and preaches, this is one of […]
COMMENTARY: Combatting, communicating and creating at Sundance
By Dick Staub — January 25, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service PARK CITY, Utah _ I’m writing from Sundance 2008, and opening night illustrates why some religious folks hate this film festival while others love it. The “combatants,” Christians who bemoan the deterioration of American civilization as reflected in today’s films, will be disgusted that Sundance opened with the dark comedy […]
COMMENTARY: Whatever happened to the common good?
By Dick Staub — January 11, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) So I guess this will be another “confessions of a former talk show host” column. In the 1990s, soon after the Republicans released their “Contract with America,” the Christian Coalition released its “Christian Contract with America.” It seemed transparently similar, so when Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed appeared on […]
COMMENTARY: All you need is love?: 725 words: A photo of Dick Staub is available via www.religionnew
By Dick Staub — December 28, 2007
c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Being a child of the ’60s, my theology was shaped by those great British theologians, The Beatles, who announced good tidings of great joy: “All you need is love,” followed by “Love, love me do, you know I love you” and “She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah.” But lingering […]