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Why I’m Not Quite Sold on ‘Black Santa’

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…ompeting soda drink companies Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, and White Rock Beverages all depicted Santa Claus in his now iconic red and white suit. That said, Santa Claus was not exclusively depicted as white in the popular American imagination. In his BBC News piece, “Secret History of Black Santas,” Brian Wheeler uncovers a long tradition of depicting ol’ St. Nick as Black as far back as the turn of the 20th century. Unfortunately, rather than function…

Like Azusa Street Baptized into Bureaucracy: Mexico’s Flourishing LLDM Church Loses its Apostle

By Michael Schulson

…Lee Minemann interrupted services in the largest Protestant church in Guadalajara, Mexico. Taking the podium, Minemann announced that Samuel Joaquín Flores, who is considered by his followers to be a living apostle of Jesus, was near death. At the time, I was sitting in a little brick church near Raleigh, N.C., with some 60 members of Samuel Joaquín’s movement, Iglesia La Luz del Mundo, or LLDM. The pentecostal Iglesia may be Mexico’s largest hom…

Lying about Santa: The Irrelevance of Proof to the Holiday Spirit

By Nathan Schneider

…od holiday story,” the woman from AP confided to me, sensibly enough. I confess it was only then that I realized why, aside from the off-chance of catching some dazzling theoretical insight, my editor imagined it worth sending me to write a whole article about this swiftly-passing hour in a neighborhood bar. But there it is: anything to get us into the holiday spirit. Soon it became evident that none of the other young Brooklynites around me (who…

Death Couture: Not For Halloween Only

By Stephen Andes

…ws, the coconuts can be bought for 10 pesos. Outside the colonial town of Valladolid, small knick-knack shops line the road selling everything from gaudy jewelry to carved wooden miniature pyramids. And there beside the Virgin of Guadalupe and San Judas Tadeo a gargantuan lawn statue of La Santa Muerte—Mexico’s patroness saint of death—looms over the rest. After Mexican children go trick-or-treating on Halloween they will celebrate the “Days of th…

Religion in Real Time on CNN’s “Believer”: A Conversation with Reza Aslan

By Kaya Oakes

…ual but not religious” people is growing. Yes, and the exact same thing is paralleled in Scientology. You have a church that is obsessed with maintaining an absolute iron grip over the religion. If you don’t follow Scientology under the church’s guidance, you’re not really a Scientologist. And that again has led to stagnation, it’s led to a massive drop in members of the church. It has created a church that’s not really built to respond to the imm…

Does the Inquisition Explain the Modern World?

By Gordon Haber

…oosen me a little—I did everything that is said of me.” But del Campo’s confession was not specific enough. So they put her in the potro, which Lea describes as “a kind of trestle, with sharp-edged rungs across it like a ladder,” and wrapped more cords around her body. Del Campo begged for someone to tell her how to confess: “If I knew what to say I would say it.” Instead, a toca, or linen strip, was placed in her mouth, and water was poured on i…

The Creepy Surveillance of Elf on a Shelf

By Kelly J. Baker

…s approaches. It is available in light or dark-skinned varieties. Accessories allow families to transform the elf into a boy or girl. The elf emerged from The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition co-authored by mother and daughter, Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell. The book alone has sold over six million copies since it was released in 2005. For $29.95, parents can purchase the book and toy to start a new tradition. The story presents a “scout…

Mexico’s Own Satanic Panic

By Joseph Laycock

…ponentially, fueled in part by the fear and anxiety created by Mexico’s escalating drug wars. Gifts of flowers, candy, alcohol, and tobacco are often left at shrines to Santa Muerte. There have been rumors of human sacrifice only in the last few years and these have (until now) been unsubstantiated. On March 6, Jesus Octavio Martinez Yanez, 10, was reported missing from the town of Nacozari, Mexico, near the Arizona border. Investigators discovere…

Mexico’s War on Saint Death

By Joseph Laycock

…Calderon took office in 2006, some 9,000 people have been killed in an escalating war between Mexican troops and the cartels. In March, the government expanded its war on drugs by demolishing shrines of Santa Muerte. Shrines can be found in Mexico City and Tijuana, as well as almost every town on the Mexican border. Devotees leave offerings of flowers, fruit, tequila, rum, and tobacco. Immigrants crossing the border illegally have been found with…

Santa Executed by Repent Amarillo

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…epy as parents are instructed to bring their children to the screen to witness Santa’s final moments. Then the shooting starts as three people lock and load and empty their guns into Santa several times. Then, the “coup de grace” (pronounced “coo-dee-grace” on the video), as one goes in to take a final couple of close in shots to finish off the jolly fat man. The video shows just the barrel of the shotgun as two shots are fired pointblank into San…