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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

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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Religion Dispatches

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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