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Did the Pope Embrace the Prosperity Gospel?

By Sarah Posner

…offshoot unrelated to the main Episcopal denomination. The CEEC also ordained Gene Ewing, creator of St. Matthew’s Churches, who for decades has been running a direct-mail operation sending out gaudy, gimmicky letters (with prayer cloths, holy water from the Jordan and holy oil) promising riches and healing for anyone desperate enough to send in their money. Ewing, dubbed “God’s Ghostwriter”, routinely wrote similar garish letters for other evang…

Norway Massacre Suspect Anders Behring Breivik, Hitler, & the Jerusalem Post Editorial

By Sarah Posner

…approves of). Here, Breivik laments that he can’t discuss this issue with neo-Nazis, and how such a discussion got him banned from the American white supremacist site Stormfront and another “national socialist forum.” He goes on to maintain that because America has “nation-wrecking multiculturalist Jews,” rather than “conservative Jews” it has a “Jewish problem:” In any case; educate yourself and learn the difference. Today’s conservatives and wa…

My God, David Brooks

By John Modern

…tibility to the sensibility of others—people, of course, but animals, machines, New York Times columns, and even abstractions such as religion and/or the secular—power words that never fail to incite. So when Taylor poses his central question—what does it feel like to live within a secular age?—the erudition and subtlety with which he strives to answer is often betrayed by a conception of religion as overwhelmingly (but not exclusively) cognitive—…

Where Polls and Surveys Fall Short: A Conversation with Robert Wuthnow on “Inventing American Religion”

By Andrew Aghapour

…ociology at Princeton University. The Cubit recently reached out to him by phone to discuss Jimmy Carter, the “Nones,” and guidelines for interpreting poll data about religion. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Andrew Aghapour: How did polls become a significant tool for understanding American religion, and what made them so attractive? Robert Wuthnow: Broad commercial polling began in the 1930s, when George Gallup, Sr. paid f…

Why Bill Maher Gets a “C” in My Introduction to Religion Class…

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…students, which is not to say they are the “right” ones, come from Catherine Albanese, Professor of American Religious History at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Columbia University’s Chair of Religious Studies, Mark C. Taylor: Religion can be understood as a system of symbols (creed, code, cultus) by means of which people (a community) orient themselves in the world with reference to both ordinary and extraordinary powers, mea…

Hajj Journal: Door Number 89: The Door with No Name

By Amina Wadud

…inding our way back to the hotel. Find a marker to help you go out of Door Number One, the King Abd Allah Aziz door. He said, “there 101 doors in and out of the Haram”—so this meant we really needed to make note for simplest return. Later, when I took my circuit around the outside of the mosque and took photos of quite a few of the doors, I also made a mental note of some of the names. (Next time I’m in the mosque, I will find out for you if any o…

My Lowest Point

By Amina Wadud

…ace. We’d made plans to meet up in case we got separated and had exchanged phone numbers. In the middle of the tawaf, the call to prayer came. The guards stopped the tawaf. Some people complied and started to form lines. I found a spot between two women, each with their husbands, and sat down on the line. This seemed an ideal spot until a woman in black niqab squeezed in on my left just as we started the prayer. Okay then. Before we had completed…

The Real Story Behind Rick Perry’s Secret Meetings with Pastors

By Sarah Posner

…in 2000. Kaylor wrote, “You were correct to connect the news about Perry’s phone call with Robison’s effort in 1980. In fact, the connection is much stronger.” Kaylor reported in June that although Robison denied that his group was supporting a particular candidate—in fact, the group was divided over who to support, as was the religious right leadership in 2008—the televangelist appears to be a prime motivator of Perry’s prayer rally scheduled for…

How Does an Atheist Come to Believe in God?: An Interview with Jacob Needleman

By Lisa Webster

…n’s living room in the Oakland hills, I fished in my bag for the tiny microphone I planned to use with my iPhone, to record our conversation. “Is that what you’re using?” he asked, with great interest. He held up his own phone. “I just got one of these. Will this really work?” He sat next to me on the couch as I pointed him through the app store on his phone. “There it is,” I said, pointing to iTalk. “That’s what I’m using.” He tapped the screen,…

Cloverfield: Sin & Redemption, with Monsters

By Gabriel Mckee

…n short, it’s self-absorption: the characters in this film search for cell phone chargers while the world falls down around them. In one key scene (that appears in the trailer), the monster hurls the head of the Statue of Liberty, which crashes down a few feet from the POV camera. Within seconds, people have lined up in front of it to take pictures with their cell phones. They’re distanced from what’s happening around them, oblivious to what it re…