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.
Jesus, Son of Allah: The Roots of the Riots in Malaysia
Rioting continues in Malaysia this week as Muslims fight for the exclusive right to the word “Allah.” But is the name of God a name or a noun? And who stands to gain politically from this unrest?
Christmas in Rome: Religion as an Aesthetic Phenomenon
To spend this season in Rome is to recall that traditional religions specialize in beauty in worship.
Jesus was pretty clear about divorce: it's a sin. If you live in California you can sign a petition to make it illegal — and see how it feels to try to step on the civil rights of others.
God Promises to Open our Graves: A Theology for the Age of AIDS
The task of religious thinking in the age of AIDS is to counter society’s rejection of the ill, the old, the marginalized.
A new book.
The Gospel of Contradiction: An Interview with Mary Gordon
Why is the character of Jesus so powerful? Why is he such a hit? Bestselling writer Mary Gordon re-reads the Gospels, asking these questions, among others, and trying to figure out why fundamentalist readings of scripture, grounded in fear and rage, have come to dominate the understanding of religion in this country.
If adding sexual orientation to the hate crimes law saves just one life, it brings redemption (and safety) to us all.
When the director Roman Polanski sexual assaulted a 13-year-old, was it only US law he violated?
Israeli Jesus: More Popular Than Ever
The staging in Jaffa of a controversial play with Jesus as central character is shut down by protests—but not for the reasons one might imagine.
Christianity Without the Cross
A new book investigates the history of the crucifix in early Christianity and develops a political theology of this-worldly salvation.
The Christian Roots of the New Age: The Aquarian Gospel
In this 1908 retelling of the gospels, Jesus travels to India, Persia, and Greece, preaching of a “cord of love” that binds all humanity. What does The Aquarian Gospel have to teach us about Christianity, New Age religion, and the birth of the culture wars?
Apocalypse Earth: What Would Jesus Say About the Approaching Environmental “End Times”?
Does Christianity have any workable teachings for an age of global concerns? Were Jesus to return on this 40th anniversary of the moon landing to preach a “Sermon on the Moon,” “Consider the lilies” would become “consider the ecosystem,” and a “house built upon sand” would be, well, just about any house built on any shoreline in the world.
Christianity v. Christ: An Excerpt From A People’s History of Christianity
Most people know only the Big-C Christianity—Christ, Constantine, Christendom, Calvin, and Christian America—but there is another one, linked to a biblical parable of a wounded man’s rescue by a stranger.
Putting the “Protest” Back in Protestant: Reclaiming the Spirit of Resistance
Why has so much religious leadership come to look like “the bland leading the bland”? On the occasion of Pentecost, we present a romp through the wide range of Protestantisms, and answer the question: Why is that biblical book called “Acts” and not “Lazing About”?
America, Religious Values, and the Death Penalty; Or, If it Was Good Enough for Jesus and Socrates...
The United States is still using the logic of vengeance in enforcing the death penalty, and it is the only Western country within its primary coalitions to do so. When did it start? How can it end? What is wrong with us?
Easter in the Mountains: Christianity vs. The Call of the Wild
Can a This-Worldly and an Other-Worldly faith be friends?
Sin is not the only story. Our communities and our churches have the capacity to be compassionate, radically inclusive, and justice-driven.
Pop-Eye: Global Jesus on Film
In this invitation to inter-cinematic dialogue, S. Brent Plate offers a Lenten season roundup of Jesus films from all across the world, and not a blue-eyed protagonist among them.
RDPulpit: No Time for Lukewarm Economic Reform
New dimensions of criminality and injustice in the world of finance are revealed every day. So why are religious progressives—who know a thing or two about revelation—still posing, equivocating, and trimming around the edges while poor people suffer at the hands of a predator elite?
A new Harris poll reveals America’s heroes...and those who are heroes no more.
The "ex-straight" movement catches on. But let's try to remember, humor aside, that it's a myth that anyone, either gay or straight, simply "chooses" to be that way.
Please Bless His Eyes: Praying At The Hospital
There's a surprising quality to the prayers left at the feet of a statue of Jesus at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital; they're not simple petitions or requests for an all-powerful God to fix their problems—they are snippets of ongoing conversations.
Op-Ed: A Few Things I Wish Barack Obama Had Said
I deeply regret that some people took, or claimed to take, my use of this metaphor as a reference to Sarah Palin. Let me say categorically that I do not see Governor Palin as a pig...
With Jesus as a guide the USA does not appear to be uniquely blessed. Fortunately, that's never been much of an issue.