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Modern Vampires: Your Neighbors and Spouses

By Joseph Laycock

…inced that this is a sizable community worthy of serious study. What’s the most important take-home message for readers? By studying vampires, we study ourselves. I am concerned that despite the best intention of many scholars, the term “new religious movement” (a label that has been applied to vampires) carries with it the subtext that a group is totally “other.” While it may be comforting to think that we are totally different from vampires, thi…

Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife

By Lisa Miller

…ation. For if you believe in heaven as a real place, a physical place (and most people do), then you need a body or something like a body with which to enjoy it. The critical verse here is 1 Corinthians 15, in which Paul explains to those who doubt the truth of the resurrection that the body is like a seed—and when it rises in the resurrection is both has the properties of a seed and of something else altogether. “What is sown is perishable, what…

Top Five (Less Sensational, But More Dangerous) Things to Remember About Pat Robertson (1930-2023)

By Mark Hulsether

…r,” the proportions aren’t any clearer. Sadly, even the least alarmist and most metaphorical reading remains deeply disturbing. Knowing what we do now about how easily Trump’s insurrectionists crossed the line to literal violence, the questions remain urgent. Rather than rework the earlier argument from the ground up, I bring it back here as originally published on January 21, 2010, with a few light edits for clarity. Insofar as times have changed…

Haiti and the Push for Theological Questions

By Paula M. Cooey

…ample, attributed the earthquake to underground caves filling with gases.) Most folks found either of these approaches less than satisfactory. Today some historians see the Lisbon earthquake as signaling the end of the optimism of the European Enlightenment and the beginning of the anxiety and emotional excessiveness of Romanticism. “If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others?” Perhaps the best known response falls more into t…

Aasif Mandvi on Islamophobia, Acting, and the Long Shadow of Jon Stewart

By Haroon Moghul

This couldn’t be a more topical interview. Aasif Mandvi might be most famous for his hilarious commentary on The Daily Show, but he’s also a very well-regarded actor, creator, artist, and writer. At a time when we’re not having a debate about Islam and extremism so much as we’re slinging talking points past each other, Aasif Mandvi took time out of a very busy schedule to talk about Halal in the Family and much more. Namely: He teases us with gli…

Another Manufactured Outrage: Rep. Ilhan Omar Did Nothing Wrong in Listing Hamas, Israel, and U.S. Together

By Joshua Shanes

…ther Republicans, went so far as to question her American bona fides and almo*]}*st literally told her to go back to where she came from, exposing the racist emotion underlying so much of this outrage. This is a dance we’ve seen before. So what exactly is their concern here? Whenever outrage explodes against Rep. Omar, the first thing I do is step back and say to myself: Don’t assume anything positive or negative. Perhaps she said something truly wron…

The 17th Century Roots of Roy Moore’s Refusal to Concede the Election

By Karen E. Park

…de. Moore’s short non-concession speech late Tuesday night was comprised almo*]}*st entirely of a paraphase of Psalm 40. He attempted to prop up the sad and subdued crowd by saying: But we also know that God is always in control. You know, part of the thing—part of the problem with this campaign is we’ve been painted in an unfavorable and unfaithful light. We’ve been put in a hole, if you will. And it reminds me of a passage in Psalms 40. I waited pat…

Diplomatic Suckerhood: Why Israel Is Fighting Toward its Own Demise

By Ira Chernus

…ve the power, to be sure (by various accounts, the fourth, fifth, or sixth most effective military in the world) which they frequently put on display. But all that expenditure of effort and money—much of it from American tax dollars, but a considerable amount from Israelis’ taxes—has apparently not purchased feelings of powerfulness, confidence, and pride. On the contrary, Israeli political life seems dominated by anxiety. So, for example, the fea…

The Sacred and the Dead: Truckin’ as a New American Pilgrimage

By Varun Soni

…g molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe.” As the world’s most popular cult band, the Grateful Dead developed an extremely loyal and devout fan base that literally spent their lives following them from concert to concert, city to city, state to state, and country to country. Known as Deadheads, the devotees of the Grateful Dead collectively formed an intentionally itinerant community numbering in the tens of thousands, with their…

Sex and the Chosen People: Be Fruitful and Multiply, Etc.

By Mandy Van Deven

…en the mother bathed in a bath in which sperm was left behind! (This was almo*]}*st surely not a case based in fact, as it’s a very challenging biological reality, but the rabbis often played with theoretical cases and this one likely pointed to feelings about the bathhouse as a place of licentiousness—or perhaps it was a story that could enable a pregnant young woman to keep her virtue intact.) More often, we’re left to think about new technologies i…