Rachel Marie Stone's Blog

I’m retiring from blogging, but I’m still around on the Internet

This post is long overdue, though I don’t kid myself that it’s long awaited by anyone, or anything like that. Blogging, at one time, was a wonderful thing for me. And it remains a wonderful thing for lots of people. But blogging was always supposed to be a part of a larger writing life for […]

Is Religion Harmful to Children? A Prominent MD Rethinks Jesus.

  Dr. Paul Offit was pretty sure that religion was harmful to children. But while writing his newest book on medicine, the co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine was surprised by Jesus. Offit says he always had moderate respect for religion but started to doubt when, as a young attending physician, he saw five children die [Read More...]

Long before Bittman, the classic, quietly bestselling cookbook about health, faith, and justice

There were no shortage of nutty Christian diet books in and around the churches and homes I frequented as a child and teenager. Most notable among these, for me, was Gwen Shamblin’s Weigh Down Diet. For whatever help it may have offered to some people, for me, its directives — only eat when famished, take [Read More...]

No, vaccinating your children (or not) is not a “personal decision”

Actually, it’s the exact opposite of that. Religion is sometimes said to make people abandon reason in order to maintain allegiance to their faith. But I’d say that American politics are threatening to do the very same thing. The President says “you should get your kids vaccinated” — mind you, he doesn’t mandate a thing [Read More...]

Roald Dahl, Whose Daughter Died of Measles: “It is really almost a crime to let your children go unimmunized.”

I’ll just make it clear from the outset where I stand: I believe that every Christian, especially the social justice minded, has a duty to vaccinate themselves and their children. For most of today I have been sitting on the couch with my nearly 7 year old son, who has been vomiting and taking tiny [Read More...]

Your right to forgo vaccines ends in our shared airspace

This piece from The Onion, “I don’t vaccinate my child because it’s my right to decide what eliminated diseases come roaring back” is, next to Eula Biss’ sterling book, On Immunity, the most appropriate response to  the vaccine “controversy” that I have ever seen: As a mother, I put my parenting decisions above all else. [Read More...]

Why you should still bring canned goods to food drives

We live in a time in which most of us are so savvy that we’re in danger of being cynical; so wise to the way the world “actually” works and exploring the hidden side of everything that we are apt to do nothing. Foreign aid? Creates dependency, is imperialism disguised as benevolence, more harm than [Read More...]

On taking communion: why it’s okay to make crunching noises

It may not seem like it, but this is a question of serious theological import: it is definitely okay — no, more than merely ‘okay,’  it is meet and right and your bounden duty to audibly chew your communion bread in church. When I was a very small girl — no older than five or [Read More...]

Talking with children about death and God and Christmas (and much more)

One of my sons talks a lot about death, and it comes up in the strangest conversational contexts. Such as: “I like to talk baby-talk.” “Why? Do you want to not grow up and always be my baby?” “No, I want to not grow up so I don’t have to die.” Yeah. Heavy thoughts going [Read More...]

A Very Foodie Giveaway

Let me be clear: I do *not* think that right now is “the most wonderful time of the year.” It’s dark. It’s cold. It’s rainy. And all the news is bad. You know it’s rough when you start to feel jealous of the cat. My cat spends his time with his head pressed against the [Read More...]