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Burning Man: Religious Event or Sheer Hedonism?

By Lee Gilmore

…llar annual budget is funded almost exclusively by ticket sales, and these tickets are not cheap (ranging this year, for example, from $210-$300 depending on time of purchase). This pays for the basic infrastructure as well as expenses like a hefty per-person/per-day use fee charged by the Bureau of Land Management. In addition, a significant portion of each year’s budget is set aside to fund many of the large-scale art installations various parti…

Saving Teens from Obama: When Bible Study Goes Wrong

By Vyckie Garrison

…ted to get the kids thinking,” they told me. When I wondered if purchasing tickets for the kids using Salvation Army funds could be a violation of the church’s tax-exempt status, Miranda argued that she didn’t see a problem. Since the Bible is applicable to every facet of private and public life, she reasoned, how it would be possible to talk to the kids about anything government-related without jeopardizing their tax-exemption? “Our hands would b…

I’m Too Sexy for My Church: Will a Thriving Singles Scene Renew American Catholicism?

By Megan Sweas

…s about their faith, but they’re going for places where there are [larger] numbers,” Kron says. “If young adult ministry is all about meeting Mr. or Mrs. Right, the church runs the risk of losing couples as soon as they pair off.” Not just about brides and grooms Dating drama can make YMA seem like high school, one young woman tells me over a beer at a Sunday night trivia event (indeed, many YMA members suspect that some only show up the social ev…

Who Is “Sam Bacile?”

By Sarah Posner

…icted of financial crimes. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, who lives outside Los Angeles, confirmed on Wednesday he managed and provided logistics for The Innocence of Muslims. Nakoula, who pleaded no contest to federal bank fraud charges in 2010, told AP in a brief interview outside his home that he considered Islam a cancer and that the film was intended to be a provocative political statement assailing the religion. He denied being Sam Bacile, th…

Gas For Two Bucks a Gallon? Bachmann Taps a Pipeline to the American Sacred

By Rosamond C. Rodman

…it a sacred object; although one could not be blamed for thinking so. The Los Angeles Times reports that Americans spend almost 100 billion a year on new car purchases alone, not counting used car purchases or maintenance of existing cars. When gas costs $3.84, reports CNN/Time, Americans spend eleven cents out of every dollar on gasoline. On average, an American spends 72 minutes a day in a car, getting from place to place. In one sense, a car…

SoulCycle Looks to Sell its Soul

By Michael Schulson

…lCycle is gambling that people outside of New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles (which, together, account for 95% of SoulCycle’s revenue) will be willing to drop $30+ in order to pedal in unison with strangers, listening to messages of empowerment, growth, and self-actualization. But SoulCycle is also part of a larger gamble: namely, that Americans will be willing to meld the forms of spirituality and the forms of capitalism in more and more bl…

The Moral Bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Asceticism

By Vlad Chituc

…eatshop laborers and the unregulated sharing economy. Although he lives in Los Angeles, no one exemplifies the new Silicon Valley asceticism better than Rob Rhinehart, the software engineer who developed Soylent, a “nutritionally complete” liquid meal replacement with a taste that media outlets describe as anything between “flavorless custard” to “like someone wrung out a dishtowel into a glass.” The central ideas behind Soylent are efficiency and…

An American Muslim Abroad, Or, Things I Saw in Dubai

By Haroon Moghul

…h buildings, starting right around the same time. Talk about luxury on the cheap; it’s hard to deny a feeling of similarity. (The tower is to the Burj as a certain toupee is to hair: might the Trump Tower inadvertently mimic an Islamic motif?) The regal twin palm trees in the foreground are the world’s tallest, at some 3,500 feet each. Recently a falling coconut crushed an entire apartment complex, punching a massive hole that has filled up with…

Like Azusa Street Baptized into Bureaucracy: Mexico’s Flourishing LLDM Church Loses its Apostle

By Michael Schulson

…the church have accused Samuel of sexually assaulting minors. In 1998, the Los Angeles Times reported that four people had filed accusations against Samuel with the prosecutor’s office in Guadalajara. The Times also spoke with a young man who, after going public with allegations against Samuel, was kidnapped and slashed 57 times with a knife. LLDM authorities have denied any involvement in these assaults, of course. At the time, much of the negati…

The Atheist Encounter with Christianity: A Failure to Disbelieve?

By Paul Wallace

…got through it and have since passed through many more sloughings-off of closely-held ideas. Take Your time. Build Some Trust. It is not only religious ideas that should be periodically shed, but philosophical beliefs and ideas about other people and ideas about ourselves. For example, one may believe that religion is merely a naked emperor, that it is foolishness and self-deception all the way through. One may believe that Christianity is a simp…