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Religion Dispatches - Religion Dispatches Religion Dispatches
  • Racial Justice
    • Breaking Up With Marilynne Robinson Over Her Refusal to Acknowledge the Dark Side of Puritanism
      Breaking Up With Marilynne Robinson Over Her Refusal to Acknowledge the Dark Side of Puritanism
    • Racialization Meets Purity Culture: Abortion Criminalization Cases Confirm That It’s Always Been About Controlling Women’s Bodies And Protecting the ‘Ideal’ American Family
      Racialization Meets Purity Culture: Abortion Criminalization Cases Confirm That It’s Always Been About Controlling Women’s Bodies And Protecting the ‘Ideal’ American Family
    • Embryo Men — Decades of Conspiracy, Christian Nationalism, and Fear Led Us to The End of <em>Roe v. Wade</em>
      Embryo Men — Decades of Conspiracy, Christian Nationalism, and Fear Led Us to The End of Roe v. Wade
  • Politics/Law
    • The Right is Using the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago Search to Martyr Trump and Maintain the Violent Myth of the Big Lie
      The Right is Using the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago Search to Martyr Trump and Maintain the Violent Myth of the Big Lie
    • New Apostolic Reformation Faces Profound Rift Due to Trump Prophecies and ‘Spiritual Manipulation of the Prophetic Gift’
      New Apostolic Reformation Faces Profound Rift Due to Trump Prophecies and ‘Spiritual Manipulation of the Prophetic Gift’
    • Breaking Up With Marilynne Robinson Over Her Refusal to Acknowledge the Dark Side of Puritanism
      Breaking Up With Marilynne Robinson Over Her Refusal to Acknowledge the Dark Side of Puritanism
  • The End of Roe
    • Despite Vastly Different Values, Evangelical ‘Hamilton’ Connects Secular Left and Christian Right
      Despite Vastly Different Values, Evangelical ‘Hamilton’ Connects Secular Left and Christian Right
    • What a Turn-of-the-Century Anti-Abortion and Contraception Crusader Reveals About GOP Efforts to Ban Abortion Pills by Mail
      What a Turn-of-the-Century Anti-Abortion and Contraception Crusader Reveals About GOP Efforts to Ban Abortion Pills by Mail
    • Orthodox Church’s Authoritarian Anti-LGBTQ Statement Poses Serious Threat to Academic Freedom
      Orthodox Church’s Authoritarian Anti-LGBTQ Statement Poses Serious Threat to Academic Freedom
  • Christian Nationalism
    • The Right is Using the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago Search to Martyr Trump and Maintain the Violent Myth of the Big Lie
      The Right is Using the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago Search to Martyr Trump and Maintain the Violent Myth of the Big Lie
    • New Apostolic Reformation Faces Profound Rift Due to Trump Prophecies and ‘Spiritual Manipulation of the Prophetic Gift’
      New Apostolic Reformation Faces Profound Rift Due to Trump Prophecies and ‘Spiritual Manipulation of the Prophetic Gift’
    • Breaking Up With Marilynne Robinson Over Her Refusal to Acknowledge the Dark Side of Puritanism
      Breaking Up With Marilynne Robinson Over Her Refusal to Acknowledge the Dark Side of Puritanism
  • Russia Invades Ukraine
    • Unprecedented Anti-LGBTQ Statement By Orthodox Church in America Should Be Christian Nationalist Warning Sign to US Orthodoxy
      Unprecedented Anti-LGBTQ Statement By Orthodox Church in America Should Be Christian Nationalist Warning Sign to US Orthodoxy
    • With This Largely Overlooked Shakeup is the Russian Orthodox Church Looking to Westernize? Yes and No
      With This Largely Overlooked Shakeup is the Russian Orthodox Church Looking to Westernize? Yes and No
    • Moscow Suffers its Most High Profile Defection Yet
      Moscow Suffers its Most High Profile Defection Yet
spencerdew@gmail.com'

Spencer Dew

Spencer Dew is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Centenary College of Louisiana. He is the author of Learning for Revolution: The Work of Kathy Acker (Hyperbole, 2011), and is currently writing a manuscript on the role of law in three related black ethnic religious movements: the Moorish Science Temple of America, the Yamassee/Nuwaubian movement, and the Washitaw de Dugdahmoundyah.

Culture, Remapping American ChristianitiesJuly 6, 2017

Martyrdom, Racist Violence, and the Role of Art: Kara Walker’s Religious Turn

By Spencer Dew

In her most recent exhibit, “The Ecstasy of St. Kara,” the American artist Kara Walker made a turn…

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(A)theologies, Archive, Politics/Law, Remapping American ChristianitiesJune 27, 2017

Kentucky-Fried Christianity: Governor Matt Bevin Wants to Pray Away Violence in Louisville

By Spencer Dew

Over the past few weeks, a conflict has unfolded in Kentucky, revealing a split in…

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Archive, Culture, Remapping American ChristianitiesMay 29, 2017

Here Comes President Boo Boo: Trump’s Tour as Reality TV

By Spencer Dew

It was billed as unprecedented,  a religion-themed tour to “broadcast a message of unity” to…

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Archive, Politics/Law, Remapping American ChristianitiesApril 19, 2017

Alex Jones, Performance Artist, and the Duelling Meanings of ‘Sincerity’ in Politics and Public Life

By Spencer Dew

As part of a contentious fight with his ex-wife over custody of their three children,…

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(A)theologies, Archive, Culture, Remapping American ChristianitiesApril 11, 2017

Church of Pain: Religion, Ritual, and the Body in the New Serial Spin-Off, “S-Town”

By Spencer Dew

A wildly popular podcast uses religion as its final reveal—a “church” devoted to the art of the tattoo, and to drunken discussion of the work of George Bataille.

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(A)theologies, Archive, New BooksMarch 30, 2017

Christianity as American Horror Story in Joyce Carol Oates’ Newest Novel

By Spencer Dew

Joyce Carol Oates’s hefty new novel, A Book of American Martyrs, reveals an America haunted by a…

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(A)theologies, Archive, CultureMarch 24, 2017

How a Mormon Spring Break Ritual Came to Include a Whole Lot of “Hare Krishna, Hare Rama”

By Spencer Dew

This weekend, tens of thousands of people—primarily college age, overwhelmingly Mormon—will descend on the Sri…

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Archive, Remapping American ChristianitiesMarch 13, 2017

Let’s Get Lost: Mapping Religion in the 21st Century

By Spencer Dew

Maps allow for a kind of immersive wandering, yet at the same time reminding us of our distance from that which we contemplate—this is an essential caution for considering any maps of American religion

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(A)theologies, Beyond Belief: Election 2016, Politics/Law, Remapping American ChristianitiesFebruary 2, 2017

Bannon’s “Alt-Facts” Satan

By Spencer Dew

“The fight for real power is over what gets to count as a fact in the first place. Truth only matters insofar as you have the power to determine what is truth.”

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Archive, Beyond Belief: Election 2016, Politics/Law, Remapping American ChristianitiesJanuary 22, 2017

Trump’s Inaugural Address Gets an “F” in American Civil Religion

By Spencer Dew

Trump’s America will shine not as an exemplar of righteous conduct but as an example of “winning” business practices and national self-interest.

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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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