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Religion Dispatches - Religion Dispatches Religion Dispatches
  • Racial Justice
    • Where Did White Evangelicalism’s Hatred of Critical Race Theory Really Begin?
      Where Did White Evangelicalism’s Hatred of Critical Race Theory Really Begin?
    • Biden’s New Domestic Terrorism Strategy Addresses Trump’s Omission of White Nationalism, But Fails to Address Targeting of Black and Brown Americans
      Biden’s New Domestic Terrorism Strategy Addresses Trump’s Omission of White Nationalism, But Fails to Address Targeting of Black and Brown Americans
    • Red Pop and Freedom: How (And How Not) to Celebrate Juneteenth, a New Federal Holiday
      Red Pop and Freedom: How (And How Not) to Celebrate Juneteenth, a New Federal Holiday
  • Politics/Law
    • Red Pop and Freedom: How (And How Not) to Celebrate Juneteenth, a New Federal Holiday
      Red Pop and Freedom: How (And How Not) to Celebrate Juneteenth, a New Federal Holiday
    • We Can’t Spiritualize Our Way out of American Polarization
      We Can’t Spiritualize Our Way out of American Polarization
    • Another Manufactured Outrage: Rep. Ilhan Omar Did Nothing Wrong in Listing Hamas, Israel, and U.S. Together
      Another Manufactured Outrage: Rep. Ilhan Omar Did Nothing Wrong in Listing Hamas, Israel, and U.S. Together
  • Religious Liberty
    • Convergence of Far-Right, Anti-Democratic Factions in the Northwest Could Provide a Model for the Rest of the Nation
      Convergence of Far-Right, Anti-Democratic Factions in the Northwest Could Provide a Model for the Rest of the Nation
    • First Roe, Then Contraception: Unless Action is Taken, Supreme Court is About to Strike Down Fundamental Rights of American Women
      First Roe, Then Contraception: Unless Action is Taken, Supreme Court is About to Strike Down Fundamental Rights of American Women
    • Student Expelled from Sorority for Transphobia Illustrates the Problem with Evangelical Understanding of Pluralism
      Student Expelled from Sorority for Transphobia Illustrates the Problem with Evangelical Understanding of Pluralism
  • Sex/Gender/Justice
    • It’s Time for Democrats to Read the Bible Verses on the Wall and Stop Courting White Evangelicals
      It’s Time for Democrats to Read the Bible Verses on the Wall and Stop Courting White Evangelicals
    • We Can Finally Put the Lie to Trumpism: 5 Myths Debunked By a Biden Victory
      We Can Finally Put the Lie to Trumpism: 5 Myths Debunked By a Biden Victory
    • 11 Election Tweets to Amuse, Infuriate, Enlighten, and Amuse You
      11 Election Tweets to Amuse, Infuriate, Enlighten, and Amuse You
  • New Books
    • The Breaking of Biblical Womanhood: The Problem With the Hot New Book Taking Aim at the Subjugation of Women in Evangelicalism
      The Breaking of Biblical Womanhood: The Problem With the Hot New Book Taking Aim at the Subjugation of Women in Evangelicalism
    • I’m Not Here to Fix Evangelicals, But to Show Them Who They Are: An Interview With the Author of ‘White Evangelical Racism’
      I’m Not Here to Fix Evangelicals, But to Show Them Who They Are: An Interview With the Author of ‘White Evangelical Racism’
    • How the Study of Evangelicalism Has Blinded Us to the Problems in Evangelical Culture
      How the Study of Evangelicalism Has Blinded Us to the Problems in Evangelical Culture

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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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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