Search for "cheap airline tickets from st louis mo allegiant phone number 1-800-299-7264"

Body Language: Michael Jackson and the Illogic of White Superiority

By Anthony B. Pinn

…ppearance is a strong example of the texture of that contestation. It is almo*]}*st as if deeper entrenchment in the popular imagination of the United States (and a growing global community) was physically represented by a shift in his features. He bore on his body the signs of identity politics. In his body he came to resemble in exaggerated form the stereotyped features of white Americans. In an odd way acceptance as a cultural icon was connected fo…

Must We Burn Something to Get Attention?: 50 Years After the Catonsville Nine

By Jason C. Bivins

…ecovered from the brokenness of that moment, of all that went down in that most fractious year, from Tet to MLK to Bobby to “the whole world is watching.” It was also the year of the Poor People’s Campaign, recently restarted by Reverend William Barber and others, and about which Father Berrigan enthused at the time. How should we think about Catonsville, given that we have added to this legacy much new brokenness of our own? I think of the lonely…

First Things First: Sexual Equality Just Is

By Kate Blanchard

…a brood of beautiful babies), sexual pleasure was until recently viewed by most Christian thinkers as a distraction from the more important life of the spirit. Saints no less than Augustine and Aquinas were clear that sex existed for procreation, with companionship (begrudgingly) as a secondary purpose. Following Jesus’ own path of virginity, however, was seen as the best life of all. Even when Protestant reformers emptied monasteries and convents…

Why the ‘Confession & Redemption’ Path is Unlikely to Help Falwell Recover from Sex Scandal

By Chrissy Stroop

…ed himself late Monday night and announced he was resigning after all. But mostly it offered schadenfreude, resulting in plenty of jokes from those who find catharsis in seeing hypocrisy catch up with an authoritarian Christian leader. Particularly amusing was the trolling of the official Liberty University Twitter account’s tweet (deleted this morning) asking students what they were most looking forward to this semester: https://twitter.com/DrSCu…

From ‘Management Gurus’ to ‘Corporate Chaplains’: A Review of Spirituality Inc.

By Brittany Shoot

…these cases, Lambert makes passing reference to capitalist skepticism but mostly focuses on the company’s methods for ensuring that a specific type of religious undertone exists throughout company policy. Almo*]}*st exclusively focusing on Christian workplaces, Lambert does mention the New York City diamond merchants several times, the notable bourse run by Hasidic Jews, and briefly explores the culture of the Diamond Dealers Club, which is overwhelm…

Pop-Eye: Meat The Wrestler

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…red baby dolls and slabs of meat. The cover was deemed offensive by US industry standards and replaced by a decidedly neutral cover. The controversy was picked up by fiction writer Mark Shipper in his satirical novel, Paperback Writer: The Life and Times of the Beatles, the Spurious Chronicle of Their Rise to Stardom, Their Triumphs and Disasters, Plus the Amazing Story of Their Ultimate Reunion (1977). Shipper twists the story in his recounting,…

Doubt v. Predator: A Vatican II Parable

By Gabriel Mckee

…y of the American Catholic Church’s gravest concerns of the last 50 years; most obviously the abuse scandals, but also the shrinking priesthood, the changing role of women, the civil rights movement, and the cross-pollination of secular and religious cultures. Set in a Bronx Catholic school in 1964 (taken from Shanley’s own childhood experience), the school’s principal, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep), is almo*]}*st comically tyrannical. The parish pri…

Trump’s Easter Egg Roll: Inauthentic Christianity in a Bunny Suit

By Karen E. Park

…ouse as a “timeless tradition dating back to 1878” the event has been held most years since the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes, and has grown to be the largest public event held at the White House. The Trumps’ first Easter Egg Roll in 2017 was poorly planned and thrown together hastily, by a First Lady who was likely still adjusting to her new and unwanted responsibilities, and resulted in a much smaller event than in previous years. But in…

Something Borrowed, Something Blue: Avatar and the Myth of Originality

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…. The writers of Genesis borrowed from Babylonian and other Ancient Near-East stories of the creation of the cosmos, reusing it for their own emerging monotheistic society. Over a millennium later, the writer of the Gospel of John proclaimed, “In the beginning was the logos/Word,” a phrase appropriated from the ancient Hebrew tradition (“In the beginning God created…”), mixed it with a Greek philosophical understanding of the logos that was crucia…

Noah v. Kitschy Jesus: A Tale of Two Movies

By Jay Michaelson

…another several years before I really understood that some people, perhaps most people, never went through this quintessentially sophomoric phase. Oddly, they seemed not to have read Clement Greenberg. They liked Norman Rockwell unironically. They still looked at “abstract” art and said “my pet could do that.” They listened to Richard Marx. This was especially true in America, where clichés ruled the political airwaves, as well as the radio dial,…