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Religion Dispatches - Religion Dispatches Religion Dispatches
  • Racial Justice
    • In Israel, Left and Right Join to Protest New Government Threat to Democracy — What’s Striking is What’s Missing
      In Israel, Left and Right Join to Protest New Government Threat to Democracy — What’s Striking is What’s Missing
    • As a Religious Studies Professor I Disagreed With the Hamline Firing — But Now I’ve Changed My Mind
      As a Religious Studies Professor I Disagreed With the Hamline Firing — But Now I’ve Changed My Mind
    • Enjoy the Kosher Collard Greens, But Understand This: Hebrew Israelites Have Something to Say to the Rest of the Jewish Community
      Enjoy the Kosher Collard Greens, But Understand This: Hebrew Israelites Have Something to Say to the Rest of the Jewish Community
  • Politics/Law
    • Don’t Tread on our Gas Stoves: The Latest Right-Wing Cause May Be Silly But the Strategy is the Point
      Don’t Tread on our Gas Stoves: The Latest Right-Wing Cause May Be Silly But the Strategy is the Point
    • In Hamline Case, the ‘Free Expression vs. Religious Sensibilities’ Frame Obscures a Stark Reality About Higher Education
      In Hamline Case, the ‘Free Expression vs. Religious Sensibilities’ Frame Obscures a Stark Reality About Higher Education
    • GOP Candidate Allegedly Orchestrating Shooting of Democrats’ Homes is no Accident
      GOP Candidate Allegedly Orchestrating Shooting of Democrats’ Homes is no Accident
  • Sex/Gender/Justice
    • Christian Nationalist Legislator Introduces Anti-Trans ‘Millstone Act’ Suggesting Biblical Retribution
      Christian Nationalist Legislator Introduces Anti-Trans ‘Millstone Act’ Suggesting Biblical Retribution
    • In Israel, Left and Right Join to Protest New Government Threat to Democracy — What’s Striking is What’s Missing
      In Israel, Left and Right Join to Protest New Government Threat to Democracy — What’s Striking is What’s Missing
    • Don’t Tread on our Gas Stoves: The Latest Right-Wing Cause May Be Silly But the Strategy is the Point
      Don’t Tread on our Gas Stoves: The Latest Right-Wing Cause May Be Silly But the Strategy is the Point
  • Christian Nationalism
    • Christian Nationalist Legislator Introduces Anti-Trans ‘Millstone Act’ Suggesting Biblical Retribution
      Christian Nationalist Legislator Introduces Anti-Trans ‘Millstone Act’ Suggesting Biblical Retribution
    • Don’t Tread on our Gas Stoves: The Latest Right-Wing Cause May Be Silly But the Strategy is the Point
      Don’t Tread on our Gas Stoves: The Latest Right-Wing Cause May Be Silly But the Strategy is the Point
    • GOP Candidate Allegedly Orchestrating Shooting of Democrats’ Homes is no Accident
      GOP Candidate Allegedly Orchestrating Shooting of Democrats’ Homes is no Accident
  • Russia Invades Ukraine
    • Espionage Allegations Against Russian Church Raise Religious Freedom Issue in Ukraine
      Espionage Allegations Against Russian Church Raise Religious Freedom Issue in Ukraine
    • As Tensions Escalate in the Balkans, the West Could Hand Putin a Valuable Weapon
      As Tensions Escalate in the Balkans, the West Could Hand Putin a Valuable Weapon
    • Putin’s Violent Holy War Rhetoric Made it to the Christian Right Fringe — And There’s Reason to Believe it’ll Go Mainstream
      Putin’s Violent Holy War Rhetoric Made it to the Christian Right Fringe — And There’s Reason to Believe it’ll Go Mainstream
ens310@lehigh.edu'

Ed Simon

Ed Simon is the Editor-at-Large for The Marginalia Review of Books, a channel of The Los Angeles Review of Books. A regular contributor at several different sites, his collection America and Other Fictions: On Radical Faith and Post-Religion will be released by Zero Books this year. He can be followed on Facebook, at his author website, and on Twitter @WithEdSimon.

(A)theologies, Archive, Books, Christian Nationalism, Culture, OMFG, Science, Sex/Gender/JusticeApril 5, 2022

With Demons Held Responsible These Days for Everything from Covid to LGBTQ Rights, Take a Visual Tour of the History of Demonization

By Ed Simon

During our season of political madness, it took a lot to trigger a double-take, and…

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(A)theologies, Archive, Books, CultureSeptember 30, 2021

Pittsburgh Paradox: A City Haunted by God and Steel

By Ed Simon

Willa Cather is so associated with the Nebraska prairie’s expanse, depicted in novels like O…

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(A)theologies, Archive, Politics/Law, Racial JusticeDecember 16, 2020

History Matters: On the 400th Anniversary of Plymouth We’re Still Clinging to Destructive National Myths

By Ed Simon

Within William Bradford’s massive work, Of Plymouth Plantation, composed between 1630 and 1651 while he…

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Archive, CultureFebruary 26, 2020

In a Time of Chaos and Misrule, Mardi Gras’ Subversive Message is Virtually Meaningless

By Ed Simon

Historically amongst the revelers at Venice’s celebrated Mardi Gras Carnival, are those costumed in the…

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Archive, CultureFebruary 5, 2020

Literary Critic George Steiner, Whose Views on Anti-Semitism Drew Controversy, Dies at 90

By Ed Simon

In 2019 the community of literary scholars marked the passing of the pugilistic and controversial…

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Archive, Culture, Politics/Law, UncategorizedJanuary 18, 2020

MLK Monument That Never Was, is a Reminder of the King Too Often Ignored

By Ed Simon

During the controversy surrounding the selection of a design for the Martin Luther King Jr….

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(A)theologies, Archive, Books, Culture, History/Theology, New Books, Politics/Law, Politics/Law, Sex/Gender/Justice, Sexuality/GenderDecember 19, 2019

A Devil’s Dozen of the Best ‘New Religion Journalism’ Books of the Decade

By Ed Simon

Since the turn of this century, following the news is like experiencing a daily repudiation…

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Archive, FeaturedNovember 26, 2019

Thanksgiving Reveals More About Us Than About 17th Century Events

By Ed Simon

A reluctant Indian militant, a Jew with Christmas envy, and a feminist in search of an alternative Thanksgiving are among the scholars and writers who have weighed in over the years on our secular religious national holiday of Thanksgiving.

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Archive, CultureOctober 16, 2019

Struggling With the Legacy of Harold Bloom, Brilliant but Deeply Flawed Critic (1930-2019)

By Ed Simon

For all that Bloom got wrong about theory and the state of the discipline, he was correct in his contention that the sometimes godlessness of the field was a critical detriment, and that ‘A nation obsessed with religion rather desperately needs a religious criticism.’

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Books, Culture, New BooksAugust 6, 2019

Toni Morrison, Prophet of America’s Demons (1931-2019)

By Ed Simon

Morrison’s witness to language’s power to both destroy and create has been on ample display in our current season of American blood-letting. In 1993 Morrison warned of “Tongue-suicide,” which is “common among the infantile heads of state and power merchants whose evacuated language leaves them with no access to what is … human.”

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Religion Dispatches

Religion Dispatches is your independent, non-profit, award-winning source for the best writing on critical and timely issues at the intersection of religion, politics, and culture.

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