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TLC Premieres Polygamy Reality Show Sister Wives

By Joanna Brooks

…The show opens with shots of goatee-sporting blonde Kody Brown wearing his best pin-striped suit and sitting at the wheel of his white Lexus convertible, then cuts to shots of Kody Brown bopping around under a big white tent at a wedding reception, encircled by a passel of blonde wives and blonde kids, as Brown’s voice-over intones: “My name is Kody Brown, and you’ve gotta meet my family. I like marriage. . . . And I’m a repeat offender.” What fol…

To the One-Percenters, With Love

By Garret Keizer

…o regroup the protesters who’ve been scattered by the police. Is money the best thing you have to leave your grandchildren? Is a killing in the market your best incentive for not killing yourself? Yes, some of your colleagues would laugh at you if you went out to protest. Marie Antoinette laughed too, until she found herself smiling up from the bottom of a wicker basket. The image will seem over-the-top only to the slow learners. I mean tho…

Why We Need a Public Black Theology for the 21st Century

By Vincent Lloyd

…has been the nearest that we have had in recent years, though he is at his best as a charismatic orator rather than as a public intellectual in the ordinary sense. In print, West’s Christianity can seem superficial, but performed to an audience, West displays a powerful charisma. At his best, West avoids giving white audiences what they want; he takes risks and makes sacrifices because of his convictions; and he welds ideology critique alongside s…

What Do Christians Think About the Netanyahu Speech?

By Sarah Posner

…oycott its leader — they are no friends of Israel, and we pledge to do our best to educate voters about their undermining of Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship at this crucial hour. Today, in an email to supporters, CUFI is urging voters to call their representatives and demand that they attend the speech. “Attending this speech is not merely an opportunity for our representatives;” the email reads, “it is their responsibility.” On the other…

Teaching the Dalai Lama’s Monks: Better Religion Through Science

By Arri Eisen

…aged. To me this is an odd and disturbing social conundrum: let’s take our best thinkers and idea-people, theorizers, and policy developers and eradicate any discussion of personal belief, religion, or spirituality from their official discourse. Brilliant. So, it’s refreshing to be part of a project [see the New York Times article in yesterday’s Science section], an experiment really, in which academics are actively engaging religious tradition an…

COVID-Denying Father Sergei is Just the Latest Example of the Russian Orthodox Church’s ‘Holy Man’ Problem

By Katherine Kelaidis

…n Vladimir Putin has his own renegade holy man. The spiritual father knows best The trouble arises from what’s actually one of the more humane and helpful customs of Orthodox Christianity: the spiritual father. (There are technically spiritual mothers as well, but the exclusion of women from the ordained clergy has historically kept their numbers small.) Deriving from the ancient Egyptian monastic tradition (the oldest in the Christian world), it’…

The Accidental Worshiper: Following the Music

By Tripp Hudgins

…it blends the so-called secular and sacred is what makes it typical of our time (and others, but that is not important here). Perhaps this is what makes some of us “accidental worshipers.” Our iconoclastic religiosity has sent us clamoring for symbols and “experience” elsewhere. And when we cannot find it in church we go to the place where we are fed: the coliseum. The irony here is painful. Something happens in these gatherings. Ritual theorists…

Did Pope Francis Just End the Religion and Science Conflict?

By Donovan Schaefer

…focus on their common problems. Winning theological fights may not be the best use of time and resources when the health of the planet is on the line. This shift may never happen. The shadow of the ongoing debates about Darwinism—especially among American Protestants—may be too long and too dark to challenge popular acceptance of the Conflict Thesis anytime soon. It would also require an enhanced commitment on the part of the Catholic Church itse…

Book Burning and the Scapegoating of Islam

By Eric Reitan

…erings to supernatural powers. Rene Girard is a philosopher who is perhaps best known for an intriguing theory about the religious practice of sacrifice. Social life, for Girard, inevitably inspires violent impulses. But social life also requires that these impulses be suppressed. The solution is to direct those impulses toward a scapegoat—a victim, chosen on the basis of accessibility, who becomes the target of the society’s violence, thereby ena…

Democrats Have Seized the Narrative Frame From the GOP, But Can They Find a Better Story to Tell About an Inclusive, Pluralist US?

By Chrissy Stroop

…embodied by a sheriff who once worked with right-wing wackos on their (at best) morally dubious anti-trafficking missions? Once again, Democrats cede moral ground by uncritically adopting GOP framing instead of trying to shift the conversation to something that represents the party’s inclusive and progressive vision. That brings us to religion. While the Democrats are currently winning on messaging in several areas once dominated by the GOP, they…