Religion Dispatches
…se comes at the end of the familiar New Testament, is almost in the middle—number 14 of 27 documents. When the book of Revelation comes at the end of the New Testament, it makes the whole of the New Testament sound as if we’re still looking forward to the second coming of Jesus and what is popularly called ‘the end of the world.’ When the book of Revelation appears more or less in the middle, we see it, hear it and understand it as a document prod…
Read More…y” in the Literal Heart of Jesus) speaking of infinities in not-so-endless numbered days. We may all want to be noticed by the universe. This is why we yelp into our virtualsuperaddressee of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We are all writing our own eulogies and those of our friends, day by day, good words and bad words and sublime and despairing logics (and the Kardashians, alas) all spun together. And it is here that we address the dead in plain…
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…to counter the religious right. What alternative title would you give the book? “A Primer in Progressive Theology.” How do you feel about the cover? It’s very inviting and says something important about the book. It shows an open door, full of clear glass, that suggests you are about to leave the house and step into the world. That’s where we want readers to go. Is there a book out there you wish you had written? Which one? Why? Daniel C. Maguire…
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…se of the Christian Right in America. I’m also envious of Sam Harris whose book, The End of Faith, was a brilliant blast of dissent at a time when religion appeared to be on the rampage in America. What’s your next book? There are a few ideas cooking but I don’t want to say too much. I might be an atheist but I believe in jinxing. Correction: The book designer’s name has been corrected to Briar Levit, 4/24/11 -Eds….
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…tell humorous stories, and he regarded this as one of his most interesting books. He told me he was disappointed that the book did not have more of an impact in the United States. He felt that it had a better reception in Europe. In his last years he became increasingly interested in religion in a global context. His Center for Culture, Religion and World Affairs at Boston University became an important arena for scholars from different religious…
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…ut for religious skeptics, god-Haters (misotheists), and atheists, Copan’s book can do very little to dispel their doubts about God’s foresight, wisdom, goodness, and even existence. The book takes too many theistic premises for granted to be intelligible to secular humanists. Curiously, New Atheists seem to be perfectly intelligible to theists, but it doesn’t necessarily work the other way around. While disbelief can work its way to belief, belie…
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…mad.” The refusal of the publisher to go ahead with the publication of the book, which also involved a contract for a second book, has raised charges of censorship, of caving in to radical Islam, and echoes of the controversy about Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. Just this week the Telegraph reported that the UK publisher of the book is hiding and under police protection after being targeted by extremists. “Why,” many are asking, “can’t we write…
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…artificial contraception, and how it helped their marriage. Oh yeah. That book. I’d not lately given the Torodes much thought, but if you’d asked me about the book, I might have said something pointed like “I’m very glad that they found something that worked so well for them.” Turns out, though, it didn’t work out so well for them. And I was sad to hear it. Truly. The book she and Mr. Torode wrote two years into their marriage is quite short and…
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…ntury concepts of feminism and secularism, argues Gale L. Kenny in her new book, Christian Imperial Feminism: White Protestant Women and the Consecration of Empire. Kenny offers a history of White liberal Protestant women’s engagement with multiculturalism and feminism from the 1910s through 1940s, arguing that imperial logics and racial hierarchy guided their embrace of Christian feminism even as they rejected certain forms of American imperialis…
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…as the story that speechwriter Karen Hughes wove into Bush’s 1999 campaign book, A Charge to Keep. There was no mention of Blessitt. Baker writes from the standpoint of a journalist, looking into the murky career and political and financial empire of one of America’s leading political dynasties. George H.W. Bush’s career in the CIA, capped by his brief tenure as director under Ford, reveals a politician comfortable with the workings of covert oper…
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