Religion Dispatches
…I recently visited this New Age Stephen Colbert at his home in Charleston, South Carolina to find out, among other things, how he balances comic and spiritual concerns that appear to be at odds with one another. Note: this interview has been edited for clarity and length. What does it mean to be Ultra Spiritual? Ultra Spiritual is the practice of looking spiritual and getting other people to notice how spiritual you look. Does this reflect a cultu…
Read More
…president of the one of the first all-black colleges in the Reconstruction South. So all the brothers came out of a really strong religious tradition. But Norman’s religious belief was certainly very different from that of his his grandparents and quite different from his father’s. Norman went to Union Theological Seminary in New York. Being a minister is what his parents wanted him to do; going to UTS was not what his parents wanted him to do. Un…
Read More
…isenfranchising the actual persons the 14th Amendment was designed to help—African Americans—has not been lost on historians. Three years earlier, in 1883, the Court had invalidated the Civil Rights Act of 1875; ten years later in Plessy v. Ferguson, it would formally validate the infamous “separate but equal” doctrine. What makes that Gilded Age dramatically different from our own, however, is that in 1886 there were powerful social movements pus…
Read More…orts that numerous neighbors and well-wishers have flocked to the Hudson’s South Side Chicago residence to participate in impromptu vigils and extend prayers. Some in the crowd joined a chorus singing Hudson’s recently released song Spotlight, which laments being trapped under the oppressive gaze of an overprotective lover—a tragic irony since it is believed domestic violence precipitated these murders. And others joined hands participating in bot…
Read More…rted Mormon feminist action in history. Thousands of Mormon women from the South Pacific to Europe to North America bucked convention and wore pants to church meetings on Sunday to manifest their support for greater dialogue on the status of women within the LDS Church, and Mormon men wore purple in solidarity. For Mormon feminists and allies, the event was a chance to step out of silence and fear and wordlessly say, “We are here. This faith matt…
Read More…by arson or bombing in two and a half years. One third were predominantly African American churches in the south. They were able to get civil rights convictions for racial hate crimes in 60 percent of the cases in five Southern states and Nevada. In subsequent years, the numbers fell: there were 209 church arsons in 1997 and 166 the following year, according to their annual reports. The last report was issued in 2001. Altogether there were almost…
Read More
…aire, and Harold and Kumar to name a few. Did the lackluster Bombay Dreams promote increased Indian-American exposure on film and TV? Real-Time Hypercriticism A few Sundays ago, I watched the premiere of the first TV series featuring American Muslims, TLC’s All-American Muslim. Reality TV, like Broadway musicals, is not my preferred genre. Yet, as with Bombay Dreams, I made an exception and watched the show—along with 1.7 million others, as it tur…
Read More
…k Thomas Merton. She persuaded Luce to transform their seven-thousand acre South Carolina estate into a Trappist monastery (where they both were later buried), and likewise convinced him to break new ground with the first national magazine of photojournalism. From its start in 1936, Life offered a very different take on the place of religion in America. While Time’s religious coverage moved within an orbit held by the gravity of authority, Life of…
Read More
…conservative evangelicals went on to vote for Trump by 80%. The mention of African-American voters is curious, since Sanders—like Clinton—did spend time speaking at black churches, but it cut no ice. African-Americans and particularly black women, decided that by policy and personality, Clinton was their woman, and they stuck with her. When a race is as close as Ossoff’s, it’s tempting to argue that eating into the opponent’s base on religious or…
Read More
…. Kennedy’s defense secretary announced confidently following his visit to South Vietnam in 1962. Two years later, when Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon referred to Vietnam as “McNamara’s War,” the secretary of defense shot back: “I am pleased to be identified with it and do whatever I can to win it.” McNamara, to his credit, began to have doubts by 1966, telling Johnson a year later that it was time to cut our losses and leave. Johnson dismissed him…
Read More