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Jesus Loses His Freak: How I Lost One Leper Messiah, and Gained Another
In this fourth installment of Mark Dery’s cultural critique-cum-“nonfiction novella” about a born-again teen’s transcendent encounter with Ziggy Stardust in the 1970s, our hero reckons with a conflicted Christ and watches in disgust as his beloved friday night coffee house is subsumed by the very church it served as an alternative to.
The Rundown Truth: Scientology Changes Strategy in War with Media
For the past half-decade, Scientology has responded to withering attacks with a variety of aggressive and secretive tactics, drawing comparisons to the CIA and FBI. After a recent report alleging the use of violence, however, the church has responded by hiring an ‘independent’ panel of editors and journalists to produce a 20-page assessment of the report.
Battling The Antichrist By Outlawing Microchips
We can rest easy, knowing that our government wants us to be safe from forced implantation of microchips. But it's not about civil liberties, it's about dispensational paranoia and fear of the “Mark of the Beast.”
Coffeehouse Churches and the ‘Party-on Messiah’: How I Lost One Leper Messiah, and Gained Another, Part 3
In this third installment of Mark Dery’s cultural critique-cum-“nonfiction novella” about a born-again teen’s transcendent encounter with Ziggy Stardust in the 1970s, our hero experiences an agape that is equal parts sanctified rapture and endorphin rush at a radical Friday night coffeehouse church. Meanwhile, the hippie Jesus of the Jesus Freaks reaches the big time in mainline protestantism.
Capricology: Tattoos, Blood, Cyber-Dating
In the ever more dystopian world of Syfy Channel’s Caprica, teenage girls inhabit robot bodies, or live eternally without bodies at all, human bodies are marked by memories, and all the while there is blood flowing in the virtual streets.
War of the Worldviews: Why Avatar Lost
Avatar had audiences rooting for nature, against the destruction of marauding tanks—but the Oscar went to the film that offered a soldier’s-eye view.
Consumerism’s New Frontier: The Preschool Set
Recent studies show that children as young as three years old use “brand cues” to choose among food and play options—and thus is a Pandora’s toybox opened.
The Mystic in the Rye: JD Salinger’s Religious Fiction
The one thing that seems able to tame even a hardened cynic like Holden Caufield, in the least overtly religious Salinger book, is an encounter with the innocence of childhood; especially children at play. It is this quest for lost innocence that defines the spiritual trajectory of Salinger’s most memorable characters. They are all teachers, parents, players, children-at-heart.
As the ‘gods’ of Hollywood descend in designer digs, religion scholars Gary Laderman and Anthea Butler discuss the divinity of celebrity in America.
Oscar-Nominated Ajami Depicts Reality of Second-Class Citizenship for Arab Israelis
Set on the mean streets of Jaffa, politics are ever-present in a tragic tale of a drug deal gone bad. Meanwhile, in the city that gives the film its title Jewish-only housing is being approved and properties developed.
Should I Scream and Shout, Should I Speak of Love?: How I Lost One Leper Messiah, and Gained Another, Part 2
In this second installment of Mark Dery’s autobiographical essay (a “nonfiction novella”) about a suburban teen’s transcendent encounter with Ziggy Stardust, our hero has his congenitally straight brain blown in a late-night, black and white encounter with the confusingly feminine Ziggy during Bowie’s final appearance as the character.
Capricology Week 5: Fathers, Funerals, and the Ethics of Gaming
Tamara, the girl who is dead but doesn’t know it, who exists only within the “magic circle” of a virtual game, takes center stage in this week’s episode, and in our commentary.
Mortal Combat: Risk in the Winter Olympics
The exaggerated indulgence in high-risk activities at the Winter Olympics offers more than a subtle glimpse into the deeper connections the Greeks perceived between sport and war. In the US we want greater speed, but fewer crashes; higher platforms, but we don’t want anyone to get hurt. We imagine ever-riskier surgical procedures, but we seem surprised and morally outraged if they fail.
Na’vi and Goliath: Palestinian Protesters Dress as Avatar Underdogs
Many Israelis and Jews took to Avatar with aplomb, likening it to Kabbalah and turning out in record numbers in Israel. But it remains to be seen how Jews and Israelis will respond to Palestinian protesters who, dressed as the film’s besieged protagonists, aim to position themselves in the hearts of observers as the sympathetic underdogs.
Till There Was Rock You Only Had God: How I Lost One Leper Messiah, and Gained Another, Part 1
In this opening episode of Mark Dery's original, autobiographical essay (a “nonfiction novella”) about a suburban teen’s transcendent encounter with Ziggy Stardust, we’re introduced to David Bowie’s astro-hippie alter ego from the early 1970s, a glam-rock deity of Frankensteinian spookiness and ladyboy vulnerability.
Extra-Terrestrial Kitsch: Capricology #4
Among other clues to this sci-fi opera, our Caprica watchers took particular note of a bobbleheaded bull on the dashboard of a Tauron killer. What can we learn from the possibility that Capricans can be as kitsch-obsessed, cigarette-addicted, and as reckless with civil liberties as earthlings can be?
Healed of the Sin of Religion: At Church with Sara Miles
Sara Miles was a journalist and a chef who wandered into a San Francisco church one Sunday, got religion, and stayed to start a food pantry that now feeds 600 families a week. We talked to her recently about her newest book, Jesus Freak: Feeding, Healing, Raising the Dead.
Israeli Right Demonizes Israeli Left, With American Money
The recent firing of a progressive leader by the Jerusalem Post has lit up the international press. If Israel is entering its own McCarthy era, as many fear, it is not without American support—on both sides. So where’s the American media coverage?
Believing in Tiger Woods
While Tiger Woods’ public apology offers us the chance to talk about rituals of confession and repentance, we must not forget to ask who this mythical “public” is that we hear so much about.
The Pope and Social Media: A Digital Counter-Reformation?
Benedict urges Catholic priests to use digital tech to teach and to evangelize, but the Holy Father may be underestimating the power of the non-hierarchical ethos of social media. Here’s hoping we might actually see a Vatican 2.0.