Religion Dispatches
…earings on the “radicalization of Muslims” in a climate where one-third of Republicans believe Muslims want to impose shari’ah on America and a similar number believe the president is secretly a Muslim. Events like these across the country create the environment for those beliefs, and the support for efforts like King’s hearings. As a scholar of American religion, it’s easy to see the parallels between these efforts, and those directed at Jews, Mo…
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…If the figure of the vampire is designed to explore the subtle, sexy edge between the living and the dead, then the werewolf, and his vast folkloric offshoots, is designed to explore a similarly subtle, and similarly sexy, edge: that between the animal world and the human one. These wolves—whether they’re hunting vampires or courting Red—are human beings who may all-too-easily be transformed into beasts. And back again. More often than not, with…
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…al. Along the same lines, Rome recently announced a new Facebook page that promotes the beatification of Pope John Paul II. Monsignor Paul Tighe tells USA Today that the page is a move in the direction of greater interactivity: “What we found is that Facebook doesn’t just share information, it creates community. People begin talking to each other and sharing ideas.” He’s right! Just probably not on the John Paul II Facebook page. The page, which o…
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…entually the missionaries embrace this metaphorical model of religion. The central female character, Nabalungi, takes Cunningham’s stories literally, and against the backdrop of her blighted village sings a wrenching song about reaching the storied paradise, Salt Lake City, where, she imagines, the warlords are friendly and the Red Cross is on every corner. Her belief inevitably leads to despair, as she learns that the paradise Cunningham has spo…
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…s of victims who have lost their homes and loved ones line up patiently in freezing refugee camps to receive meager supplies of food and water. There are no reported cases of looting anywhere in the country, even as thousands of Tokyo blocks are left without power during scheduled blackouts. When the hungry refugees receive food, they share it with their neighbors. Cold, injured, bereaved, suffering from the onset of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder…
Read More….’” That line was lifted and made the title of the post which made it more central than it really was and also slightly changed its meaning. In a thoughtful and helpful reply James Scaminaci questions the notion that radicalization might not be related to “religion,” showing how an important component of radicalization is a “worldview based in religion: a battle of Good versus Evil and an apocalyptic view” and I certainly agree with him. Indeed, I…
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…harged political backdrop in “secular” France, where religion is playing a central role in the political theater. Coming on the heels of the recent banning of burqas in public, the assault on the photo has been characterized as a response to Nicolas Sarkozy’s public elevation of the “Christian heritage of France,” which some see as his pandering to the Christian far-right. Gallery director Eric Mézil claims that the protests at the exhibition reve…
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…ew of the place of religion in America is simply NOT what Barton typically promotes. Going all the way back to that first book cited in the Times, Barton wrote: “Currently this nation has no religious preference. It permits diversified religious freedom and extends no special recognition to any particular faith. This nation was not founded as it now exists. It was from its inception outspokenly Christian.” [italics in original] … While there w…
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…t the medium fits the theological message, which hovers in the oscillation between the sweep of cosmic history (the film stretches from the dawn of time until the eschaton, although most of it centers on the family narrative) and the infinitesimal yet infinitely significant drama of human affairs. This is familiar territory, particularly for Americans, fed as we are on a dueling diet of Protestantism and humanism. One is reminded of Wilder’s Our T…
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…seen why such vagueness is indefensible. It seems to me that he fudges his central task—of convincing us that it could really happen—because he does not quite believe it himself. Rejecting the Fatalism of Conventional Wisdom So why, if I am right that he doesn’t quite believe in the practical possibility of Marxist revolution, does he advocate it? Because he sincerely believes in Marxism as a critical tool, as the authentic critical viewpoint. But…
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