ReligionDispatches - Dispatches From Media/Culture

The Rundown Truth: Scientology Changes Strategy in War with Media

Hugh B. Urban — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:00:01 PDT

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

Joseph Laycock — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:01 PDT

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

Mark Dery — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:01 PST

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

Diane Winston, Henry Jenkins, Anthea Butler — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:01 PST

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

Bron Taylor — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:00:01 PST

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

Peter Laarman — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:01 PST

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

Louis A. Ruprecht — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:00:01 PST

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.

Hollywood Agents of God: Are Movies the Sacred Texts of our Time?

Anthea Butler, Gary Laderman — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:00:01 PST

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

Meghan McCarty — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:01 PST

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

Mark Dery — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:01 PST

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

Diane Winston, Salman Hameed, Anthea Butler, Henry Jenkins — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:01 PST

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

Louis A. Ruprecht — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:00:01 PST

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

Shalom Goldman — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:00:01 PST

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

Mark Dery — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:01 PST

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

Henry Jenkins, Diane Winston, Anthea Butler — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:01 PST

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

Lisa Webster — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:01 PST

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

Diane Winston — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:01 PST

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

Mark Hulsether — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:01 PST

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?

Elizabeth Drescher — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00:01 PST

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.

Meet the New Haggards—Same as the Old Haggards?

Kathryn Joyce — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:00:01 PST

Ted Haggard, one of America’s most successful megachurch preachers, was officially separated from his church back in 2006. His wife and partner, Gayle, has stuck by his side through it all and has written a new book on the experience. RD spoke with her about their former church, their evolving views on homosexuality, and the future.

Mauled by an Angel: Why Do Americans Need “God’s Secret Agents”?

W. Scott Poole — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:01 PST

In the 1990s angels became a spiritual accoutrement for prosperous yet troubled baby-boomers adrift in a suburban wasteland of McMansions and Lincoln Navigators. Do the angry angels of the new film Legion, with their roots in angelmania, mean that for many Americans God is absent? And do these creatures, heavenly and horrific, fill the vacuum?

Is Sport Worth Dying For? Lessons From the Vancouver Olympics

Louis A. Ruprecht — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:00:01 PST

The ancient Greeks celebrated athletic contests because of their danger; we moderns are far more conflicted about the matter.

Kill Your Patriarchs: An Interview with Michael Muhammad Knight

Hussein Rashid — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:00:01 PST

His first book, The Taqwacores, was xeroxed and spiral-bound, but it struck a loud punk-inflected chord in a community of mostly-Islamic youth, trying to reconcile music and religion.

Taqwacore Roundtable: On Punks, the Media, and the Meaning of “Muslim”

Hussein Rashid, Kaitlin Foley, Basim Usmani, Shahjehan Khan — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:00:01 PST

What do you get when you add taqwa, or God-consciousness, to the punk suffix “-core”? Can something be Islamic without being religious? As journalists try to get a handle on this genre- and culture-bending mashup, RD associate editor Hussein Rashid gets right to the source.

Capricology: Week 3: Apotheosis, Anyone?

Diane Winston, Anthea Butler, Henry Jenkins, Salman Hameed — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:01 PST

More on the sci-fi TV show that imagines monotheists rebelling against a polytheist society, speculates about the nature of the human soul, and asks, “Can you be free if you’re not real?”