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  • Racial Justice
    • The Death of a Black Man at the Hands of Black Officers Unveiled Something More Complex Than Whiteness
      The Death of a Black Man at the Hands of Black Officers Unveiled Something More Complex Than Whiteness
    • Don’t Sleep on Trump’s CPAC Speech Calling For ‘The Final Battle’: This was Southern Strategy as Apocalyptic Promise
      Don’t Sleep on Trump’s CPAC Speech Calling For ‘The Final Battle’: This was Southern Strategy as Apocalyptic Promise
    • Did You Read About Conservative Judaism’s Anti-Black Antisemitic Smearing of Hebrew Israelites? Neither Did I
      Did You Read About Conservative Judaism’s Anti-Black Antisemitic Smearing of Hebrew Israelites? Neither Did I
  • Politics/Law
    • The Intellectual Source Code For National Conservatism Can Be Found at This Niche Catholic Publication
      The Intellectual Source Code For National Conservatism Can Be Found at This Niche Catholic Publication
    • At Launch Rally in Waco, Former President Sets the Stakes for Trump ’24 Campaign with Apocalyptic, Violent, Genocidal Rhetoric
      At Launch Rally in Waco, Former President Sets the Stakes for Trump ’24 Campaign with Apocalyptic, Violent, Genocidal Rhetoric
    • Clues in the Data Suggest That Increase in LGBTQ Acceptance May Be Skewed By Conservative Desire For ‘Respectability’
      Clues in the Data Suggest That Increase in LGBTQ Acceptance May Be Skewed By Conservative Desire For ‘Respectability’
  • Sex/Gender/Justice
    • Clues in the Data Suggest That Increase in LGBTQ Acceptance May Be Skewed By Conservative Desire For ‘Respectability’
      Clues in the Data Suggest That Increase in LGBTQ Acceptance May Be Skewed By Conservative Desire For ‘Respectability’
    • Don’t Sleep on Trump’s CPAC Speech Calling For ‘The Final Battle’: This was Southern Strategy as Apocalyptic Promise
      Don’t Sleep on Trump’s CPAC Speech Calling For ‘The Final Battle’: This was Southern Strategy as Apocalyptic Promise
    • 2023 CPAC Lived Down to Expectations, But Don’t Buy the Narrative: The GOP is Not as Divided as You Might Think
      2023 CPAC Lived Down to Expectations, But Don’t Buy the Narrative: The GOP is Not as Divided as You Might Think
  • Christian Nationalism
    • At Launch Rally in Waco, Former President Sets the Stakes for Trump ’24 Campaign with Apocalyptic, Violent, Genocidal Rhetoric
      At Launch Rally in Waco, Former President Sets the Stakes for Trump ’24 Campaign with Apocalyptic, Violent, Genocidal Rhetoric
    • Clues in the Data Suggest That Increase in LGBTQ Acceptance May Be Skewed By Conservative Desire For ‘Respectability’
      Clues in the Data Suggest That Increase in LGBTQ Acceptance May Be Skewed By Conservative Desire For ‘Respectability’
    • Communicators for Christ: How Homeschool Debate Leagues Shaped the Rising Stars of the Christian Right
      Communicators for Christ: How Homeschool Debate Leagues Shaped the Rising Stars of the Christian Right
  • Russia Invades Ukraine
    • 2023 CPAC Lived Down to Expectations, But Don’t Buy the Narrative: The GOP is Not as Divided as You Might Think
      2023 CPAC Lived Down to Expectations, But Don’t Buy the Narrative: The GOP is Not as Divided as You Might Think
    • 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

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

(A)theologies, CultureJune 16, 2009

Is Religion a Game?

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

Playing Gods, a new board game making headlines, is more than just a playful riff on religion. If we want to understand religions, we have to understand their game-like qualities, and that religion might, at the heart of it all, be a game. Which does not make it trivial.

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(A)theologies, CultureJune 12, 2009

Why Bill Maher Gets a “C” in My Introduction to Religion Class…

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…as do Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. Upon viewing Bill Maher’s Religulous the author asks: Why are the so-called New Atheists using the archaic and theologically conservative definition of religion pushed by home-schoolers?

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(A)theologies, Culture, StoriesFebruary 3, 2008

There Will Be a Nation

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, starring “Best Actor” Daniel Day-Lewis, operates as the creation myth of an imperialist America.

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Religion Dispatches

Religion Dispatches

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