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Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided Explores the Dark Side of Positive Thinking

By Michelle Goldberg

…be vanquished only by shaking off self-absorption and taking action in the world,” she writes. That’s true to some extent, but the division between internal and external change isn’t entirely neat. Some variant of determined optimism, after all, is needed for social change. How else could Gandhi believe that he could get the British to leave India, or Martin Luther King convince himself and his followers in the possibility of winning racial equali…

The Right’s Satanic-Grammy-Panic Isn’t About the Devil or Pfizer or Even Scantily-Clad Women — It’s All About the Transphobia

By Mary Rambaran-Olm

…as there an uptick in sales of hell maps when AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” came out in 1979? Was Lucifer spotted more frequently when Rob Zombie sang “Lucifer Rising” in 2013? I don’t know. But while we investigate, I think people like Cruz, MTG, and Shapiro should consider the words of Dolly Parton, the world-renowned, universally-beloved country singer-songwriter who, in a beautiful song from her 2003 album “For God and Country,” gave them clear in…

Why Did Vandals Try to Destroy a Holy Tree?

By Joseph Laycock

…-monarchists to atheists. However, this appears to have been an act of destruction for the sake of destruction. The ubiquitous question is what would motivate someone to do such a thing? Theorists like Georges Bataille and Terry Eagleton might say that such acts are actually rooted in a longing for transcendence. To understand why, it should be noted that this is not an unprecedented event. 1989, Austin, Texas: Paul Cullen pours massive quantities…

Gordon Gekko Gets God: The Heritage Foundation of Theology

By Peter Laarman

…dia—and we might note here that the accelerating collapse of old-fashioned newspapering is bound to lead to even less real investigative scrutiny of their endless conniving and insider dealing. And, to get to the point of this essay, they also own a significant part of religious thought in this country. They always have, inasmuch as Anglo-American Protestants could never quite decide how much to follow Jesus Christ and how much to follow John Lock…

Country Music Minus the Culture Wars: A Lesson from a Legend

By Paul Harvey

…nother year.” They came from the gut-wrenching experiences of the Southern rural working class, people who were poor recruits for the modernist fundamentalism of conservative townspeople, and difficult material to mold into an organized movement. [Note: John Hayes’ dissertation “Hard, Hard Religion: Faith and Class in the New South” (University of Georgia, 2007) plumbs their experience as well as anyone ever has.] Once, after hearing a moving addr…

Bibi’s Bad History

By Shaul Magid

…hatred” (sinat hinam). Perhaps there’s a lesson in that rabbinic teaching today. While it’s true that Netanyahu isn’t a scholar of the Hebrew Bible or the rabbinic tradition, he is the son of a historian and thus his historical lapses are less forgivable. Most political speeches on the world stage are hypocritical, but this one is also cynical and duplicitous. Netanyahu claims that Rohani says one thing and means another largely because of things…

The Vatican v. Protestant Free Thinkers

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…h, as that Pope never tired of repeating, can never be promoted by force; truth’s power lies its truthfulness, nothing more. Now in a great many ethical and political matters, John Paul II was as anti-modern a Pope as the Church has seen in recent memory; his successor even more so. But on the devilish topic of religion, science and free enquiry, these same Popes have elected to stand emphatically on the side of the moderns. This volume offers an…

Egypt Protests Upset Assumptions About the
Arab World

By Sarah Eltantawi

…January 25th‘s “Day of Rage” to protest poverty, unemployment, and police brutality. As events have unfolded, however, it has become clear that Cairo’s protests are actually a Tunisia-inspired call for regime change. The “Day” of Rage—now entering its third day—proves that the old calculus relied upon by political “realists” grossly underestimates both the anger and will of the Egyptian people, as well as the generalized discontent of Arabs living…

Sex, the Body, the World: It’s R. Crumb’s Bible Now

By Naomi Seidman

…are some peculiar pleasures in the union of these realms, in a biblicized Crumb, a Crumbulated Genesis. A Certain Crumbitude The unspoken assumption in most reviews I’ve seen is that the latter is the more interesting phenomenon, or at least the more important one, with the greater cultural stakes. As others (including Robert Alter, whose translation undergirds most of Crumb’s text) have commented, Crumb’s illustrations quite literally flesh out t…

11 Top RD Stories of the Year: Because in 2020 Religion Went to 11

By The Editors

…the Atlantic Ocean. This is the version of events most people know to be true. But, in the world of QAnon… READ MORE Go to top 6. Satanic Temple’s ‘Satanic Abortion Ritual’ May Challenge States’ Anti-Abortion Laws, Joseph Laycock Last week, The Satanic Temple (TST) introduced “the Satanic Abortion Ritual”—a ritual designed to provide religious support and comfort for women who’ve decided to get an abortion. But the ritual has legal consequenc…