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Cinema and the Re-Creation of the World

…“Christ figure.” In the immortal words of Woody Allen, “If Jesus came back today and saw what was going on in his name, he wouldn’t stop throwing up.” It is safe to say that Allen’s comments can be applied to a lot of religious film criticism. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing? As with the above point the main audience is, I hope, students. I tried to write this in an accessible way, introducing key themes in religious studies…

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Jesus Hates Taxes: Biblical Capitalism Created Fertile Anti-Union Soil

…any opposition to the vision of a country in which corporations are given free rein to maximize profits without concern for workers’ safety, community well-being, and environmental protection. The seeds of that vision were first planted by Christian Reconstructionists and The Family and today’s conservative Christian leaders are only too eager to take advantage of the fruits of those labors to make the case that Jesus opposes efforts to ensure a…

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Ordain Women Transforms Mormon Feminism

One year ago today, Ordain Women celebrated the creation of the Relief Society on March 17, 1842 by launching its website with 19 profiles of individuals calling for the ordination of Mormon women. Today it has more than 250 profiles—and has completely transformed Mormon feminism. I continue to be impressed and pleased with the extremely thoughtful work Laurie Goodstein and Jodi Kantor are doing on Mormon women. I recommend a conversation on “The…

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Does Record Number of Religious “Nones” Mean Decline of Religiosity?

…ut American religiosity—about religion as it is lived in the United States today? A number of what I would see as problems in the Pew report suggest to me that our growing fixation with religion-by-the-numbers may be distracting us from richer, more nuanced understandings of American religious practice.  Wanted: A Community that Doesn’t Share My Beliefs and Values Take the demographic category of “Nones” itself. The Pew report notes the difficulty…

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Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead

…rits, it seems perfectly natural to dwell on the ghostly dead who haunt us today in this political season—what some have labeled the season of the witch. Surely this reorientation to mortal and immortal matters is not surprising considering this election’s campaign cycle has not only resurrected the memory of Robert Kennedy’s assassination in the democratic primaries, but also identified the accidental death of Joe Biden’s wife and daughter in the…

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High Ark: A Geologist on the True Meaning of Noah’s Flood

…rd by young-earth creationists that all of the geologic features we see on today’s Earth—sedimentary rock, species distribution, formation of continents, volcanoes, canyons, everything—can be attributed to one “global flood,” within the 6,000-year time frame they allow for Earth’s history. It’s an idea that begs for debunking, certainly, but who would be listening? Fortunately, Montgomery’s book offers the reader something much more interesting th…

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How a Group of Catholic Pacifists Took on the Nuclear State

…ndition that they refrain from civil disobedience for the next six months. Today, in the majority of Plowshares actions, participants are not immediately apprehended at their action sites and could easily turn around and walk out the same way they came in. They never do, sometimes waiting hours for their presence to be noticed. Facing consequences is an important component of much nonviolent activism, and it takes on an extra resonance for activis…

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RDBook: Apocalypse Without God

…tually becomes neo-liberal economics. The Reformation was a product of and promoted a communications revolution in terms of print. Conservative Protestants have always been the first to understand the significance of new technologies. I think the reason for that is the Protestant preoccupation with the Word, and they get the Word out however they can. For a long time it was print. In the early 20th century it was radio. By the forties it was telev…

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The Kremlin and the Church: Russia’s Holy Alliance

…s have become common after the Russian government adopted the 1997 law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations.” Promoted by the Orthodox Church and directed specifically against new religious movements, the law distinguished between the four traditional faiths—Russian Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism—and non-traditional groups such as Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter-Day Saints, and Hare Krishnas. In order to maintain…

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Cozy Cottage or House on Fire? Thomas Kinkade’s Theo-Aesthetic Legacy

…y no other artist has garnered a significant write-up in both Christianity Today and The New Yorker. He called himself the “Painter of Light” and then trademarked the phrase. He includes a Christian fish (ichthus) above his signature—but he’s also alleged to have urinated on a Winnie the Pooh figure at Disneyland, among other socially unacceptable activities.   The paradox of Kinkade and his impact on culture is encapsulated in a posthumous statem…

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