Religion Dispatches
…eally looking forward to getting back to work on it, since writing is the only part of this whole business I feel I have any control over (after all, I have absolutely no control over the reviews, the sales, the audiences or lack thereof at my readings). I miss being in charge! And, like the good grouchy writer I am, I miss being alone….
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…dead Jews. It sounds kind of ghoulish, but it’s true. The comments on the reviews on Amazon are off the charts, almost in a macabre way; it made me feel strangely uncomfortable reading them. It’s as if they’re all saying, in myriad ways, “you see, we were right, everyone hates the Jews.” Jews seem to love to have that inherited anxiety confirmed. In some way, and herein lies the problem, it is presently the most successful answer to the question,…
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…redictably stirred a flurry of comment over the holidays. Most recently, a number of prominent scholars and institutions have come out in opposition (though it should be noted that Hogwarts has thrown its fictitious weight behind the resolution). At the risk of piling on, there are significant reasons well beyond “academic freedom” (claimed by both sides in this debate) to oppose this action. To lay my cards on the table—I have attended the ASA n…
Read More…different understandings of the place of romantic love in the cosmos. Many reviews of Her have seen it as a meditation on our increasing attachment to smart technology at the expense of actual human relationships. But positing the real and the artificial as a binary ignores a crucial component of what makes us human: the metaphysical. Aside from its conspicuous lack of cars, one of the most striking things about Theodore Twombly’s Los Angeles of t…
Read More…say about Islam? Have I watched other movies I’ve written long, ponderous reviews of? Is the movie faithful to Noah’s chronology, like 1,000 years of waiting and then 40 days of flooding? If you get up to get a snack during the movie, do you miss anything? I will not answer some of these questions. I will however talk about why some Muslim countries might see Noah’s physical depiction as blasphemous. First, let’s scramble your sense of chronology…
Read More…udio evidence to the contrary. Africa Beyond Uganda Bilerico’s John Becker reviews reports of anti-gay violence Tanaznia, South Africa, and Uganda. And Gay Star News reported on a group of Nigerians who were stripped naked and whipped in front of a town hall when they wouldn’t meet a blackmailer’s demands. In Zimbabwe, notoriously anti-gay strongman Robert Mugabe described homosexuality as “inhuman,” according to the Washington Blade: “The West sa…
Read More…to examine the relationship between her faith and the content of her film reviews. The whole thing is worth reading, but I particularly liked this passage: If it’s a challenge to write about Christian films as a Christian, it can be just as problematic to review nonreligious films, especially the bad ones: The humility and loving kindness I try so hard to cultivate in my daily life doesn’t hew to the snark and downright cruelty that can be the oc…
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If you read the reviews of “Do You Believe?”—the new Christian film from PureFlix—you will get a pretty good idea of whether you’re the movie’s intended audience. (Most of the reviewers, I think it’s safe to say, are not. See Rotten Tomatoes for a sampling of the critical scorn.) The film, a star-studded feature from the creators of 2014’s surprisingly profitable “God’s Not Dead,” is meant for Christians who want to see depictions of Christians h…
Read More…higher, because pushing the bar higher benefits all of us.” Media Matters reviews the anti-LGBT credentials of several legal scholars promoting “religious liberty” laws that would allow organizations and individuals in the U.S. to claim religious exemptions from anti-discrimination laws. Among those profiled is Helen Alvaré, a law professor at George Mason University in northern Virginia. Some additional information on Alvaré’s role in the Cathol…
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…y align with decadent Europe, moral collapse will soon follow. The article reviews both progress (Latvia) and continued resistance (Ukraine) to LGBT equality, and says “in Georgia, opportunities for gay rights advocates seem even more dismal.” And in Georgia, opportunities for gay rights advocates seem even more dismal. The Georgian Orthodox Church — which has powerful historic ties to its Russian Orthodox counterparts — has come out swinging agai…
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