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  • Election 2024
    • Even if Voters ‘Get What They Asked For’ it’s More Likely to Cause a Fascist Death Spiral Than a Lesson Learned
      Even if Voters ‘Get What They Asked For’ it’s More Likely to Cause a Fascist Death Spiral Than a Lesson Learned
    • Loyalty and Chaos Play a Role in Trump’s Nominations, But This Schoolyard Tactic May Provide a Better Explanation
      Loyalty and Chaos Play a Role in Trump’s Nominations, But This Schoolyard Tactic May Provide a Better Explanation
    • Progressive Christian Election Response ‘Give us Barabbas’ May Be Well-Meaning — But Functions as Anti-Jewish Dogwhistle
      Progressive Christian Election Response ‘Give us Barabbas’ May Be Well-Meaning — But Functions as Anti-Jewish Dogwhistle
  • Racial Justice
    • Phoning It In: ‘Heathen’ Isn’t a Neutral Religious Description — It’s Also a Significant Force in the Creation of Race in the US
      Phoning It In: ‘Heathen’ Isn’t a Neutral Religious Description — It’s Also a Significant Force in the Creation of Race in the US
    • No image
      With no Viable Alternative on Ballot, Anti-immigrant Movement Claims Victory and Releases Wish Lists
    • New Doc Claiming Columbus was Jewish May Have Some Accuracy Issues — But There’s a Far Bigger Issue We Need to Reckon With
      New Doc Claiming Columbus was Jewish May Have Some Accuracy Issues — But There’s a Far Bigger Issue We Need to Reckon With
  • Sex/Gender/Justice
    • With Election Takeaways Like ‘Too Transgender’ or ‘the US is Shifting Right,’ Dems are Determined to Learn the Wrong Lesson
      With Election Takeaways Like ‘Too Transgender’ or ‘the US is Shifting Right,’ Dems are Determined to Learn the Wrong Lesson
    • Packed with Threats of Political Violence, Media Largely Ignore the NAR’s ‘Million Women’ Rally in DC
      Packed with Threats of Political Violence, Media Largely Ignore the NAR’s ‘Million Women’ Rally in DC
    • New Doc Strives for Christian Unity—But What if Unity is the Problem?
      New Doc Strives for Christian Unity—But What if Unity is the Problem?
  • Christian Nationalism
    • Phoning It In: ‘Heathen’ Isn’t a Neutral Religious Description — It’s Also a Significant Force in the Creation of Race in the US
      Phoning It In: ‘Heathen’ Isn’t a Neutral Religious Description — It’s Also a Significant Force in the Creation of Race in the US
    • Trump’s Fervent Christian Zionists Poised to Lead the Military — And US-Israel Relations
      Trump’s Fervent Christian Zionists Poised to Lead the Military — And US-Israel Relations
    • Meet Pete Hegseth, the Man Who Will Lead the Entire US Military — A Man Deemed an ‘Extremist’ by the US Military
      Meet Pete Hegseth, the Man Who Will Lead the Entire US Military — A Man Deemed an ‘Extremist’ by the US Military
  • Taxonomy Report

S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

S. Brent Rodriguez Plate, is a writer, public speaker, editor, and part-time college professor whose books include A History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects, Blasphemy: Art that Offends, and Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-Creation of the World. His essays have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Christian Century, The Islamic Monthly, Huffington Post, Killing the Buddha, and elsewhere. He is a board member of the Interfaith Coalition of Greater Utica, NY, President of the Association for Religion and Intellectual Life/CrossCurrents, and managing editor of Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief. He holds a visiting appointment at Hamilton College, NY. Twitter: @splate1

Archive, Culture, Sexuality/GenderDecember 24, 2017

The Top 10 (Non-Religious) Religious Films of 2017

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

Cinema and religion are never far apart—both bring light to darkened places. Sometimes the illumination…

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(A)theologies, Archive, Culture, Politics/Law, Religious Liberty, Sexuality/Gender, Special FeaturesMarch 8, 2017

What a Forgotten 19th Century Suffragist Can Teach Us About Women’s Rights vs. The Religious Right

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

19th century women’s rights activist Matilda Joslyn Gage sought equal rights for all, but only by rethinking religion.

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(A)theologies, Guest Bloggers, OMFG, RD BlogJune 18, 2015

Elisabeth Elliot (1926-2015) and the Rise of Extreme Evangelicalism

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

In the evangelical world in which I was born and raised, Elisabeth Elliot (who died…

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(A)theologies, Guest Bloggers, OMFG, RD BlogMay 15, 2015

From the “God Beat” to the “None Beat”

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

What reporters get, and don’t get, about the latest Pew report on religious identity.

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(A)theologies, Archive, CultureDecember 8, 2014

Saint John Coltrane: Fifty Years of ‘A Love Supreme’

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

Getting lost in the music and found in the sound.

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(A)theologies, Guest Bloggers, OMFG, RD BlogSeptember 12, 2014

The New Church: Sexual and Ethnic Diversity… and Drums!

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

The third iteration of the National Congregations Study, led by Mark Chaves and Shawna Anderson,…

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Archive, CultureMay 24, 2014

The Sacred Objects of 9/11

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

Mark Schaming is the director of the New York State Historical Museum in Albany. Soon…

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StoriesMarch 5, 2014

Why All the Jesus Films?

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

Notes from the interview with Son of God directors.

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Archive, Culture, StoriesMarch 1, 2014

Oscar Gets Religion: 7 Categories We’d Like to See

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

No Bible in this year’s Oscar nominees, and not much in the way of supernatural—but plenty of religion, if you know how to look for it.

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What Would Ai Weiwei Do? What the Smashing of a Million-Dollar Artwork Has to Teach Us
Archive, StoriesFebruary 18, 2014

What Would Ai Weiwei Do? What the Smashing of a Million-Dollar Artwork Has to Teach Us

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

On Sunday, Dominican-born artist named Maximo Caminero walked into the Pérez Art Museum in Miami and smashed a million-dollar vase. Caminero’s complaint? That local galleries put all their time and effort into international artists of high esteem, and forsake the locals. But here’s the thing: iconoclasm is itself an iconic act.

 

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