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Sing the Glory of the Smoke: The Spiritual History of Jazz

By Andrew Aghapour

…on scholars certain anti-essentialist leanings. Spirits Rejoice!: Jazz and American Religion Jason C. Bivins Oxford University Press (May 1, 2015) The similarities run deeper. Jazz musicians often describe their music as “sacred,” “spiritual,” and conducive of self-realization or social change. The history of jazz in America is one of cultural and sonic recombination, a mingling of traditions and concepts, words and sounds. Bivins, a professor in…

Why Dylann Roof Acted on His Racism

By Joseph Laycock

…lyptic race war. If Roof did not read The Turner Diaries, he certainly had contact with people who had. In the days after the attack on the A.M.E. Church, discussion focused on how Roof’s actions were related to a wider culture of racism, both in South Carolina and throughout American society. It seems that within the culture of racist apocalypticism there is a division of labor between dreamers and doers, prophets and martyrs. Numerous hate crime…

The ‘Charlie Charlie Challenge’ and Teenage Yearning for Supernatural Encounters

By Joseph Laycock

…on scholar, it seems to me the appeal of the game is a desire for a direct contact with mysterious forces. Folklorist Bill Ellis has suggested that the Ouija board—an obvious forerunner to Charlie—is a kind of ritual in which adolescents test religious worldviews by provoking an encounter with the supernatural. This perspective allows us to understand how claims about the nature of the game affect its appeal. The decision to summon Charlie is not…

Raelians Push White House for Alien Embassy to Save Humanity

By Joseph Laycock

…, Jesus, and Muhammad. Thus all religions are actually the result of alien contact. To show the Elohim we are prepared to receive their help, Rael was to oversee the construction of an embassy in Jerusalem that would serve as a millennial “third temple.” Originally Earth was given until 2025 to construct the embassy or face destruction, though a website describing the embassy has pushed the critical date back to 2035. It also features messages fro…

Theologians Claim Death Row Inmate as One of Their Own

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…e personally,” in this case, means “knowing someone who has regular social contact with people possessing masters and doctoral degrees and/or large Twitter followings and/or several published books to their credit”? Too, it’s not as though everyone involved knew Gissendaner and counted her as a friend: some, like me, were friends with people who knew her, and their pain—maybe unavoidably?—lent urgency to Gissendaner’s case. At the same time, I don…

The Battle for the Evangelical Vote

By Sarah Posner

…, and perhaps even more so because of the support he has received from the American Family Association, which was behind Lane-inspired efforts like The Response (hosted by then-Texas Governor Rick Perry in 2011, and this year by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal). Horowitz reports that the AFA “pays him a retainer and provides him with legal and accounting assistance;” in return, AFA “gets its name on all of Mr. Lane’s events and adds to its databas…

Chatting with Myanmar’s Buddhist “Terrorist”

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…BS movements are in league, and there are reports that Wirathu has been in contact with Buddhist monks from Thailand’s southern border with Malaysia, where pitched battles have been taking place between Buddhists and the Muslim majority in that locale. Wirathu said it wasn’t just Buddhists who were concerned about Islamic extremists. He said that his fears were shared by some Muslims, and gave the name of a leader of the Muslim community in Mandal…

Is Pro-Life Cause Célèbre Chen Guangcheng Actually Pro-Life?

By Lindsay Beyerstein

…ions Population Fund (UNFPA). “Perhaps that is why, according to Chen, his American ‘hosts’ started to sound more like fellow members of the international population-control mafia that is killing his country, than starry-eyed defenders of ‘human rights,’” Hoffman continued. (Hoffman provides no citation and I was unable to find evidence that Chen said anything of the kind.) In fact, while Chen was facing prison time for his forced abortion exposé,…

The World is (Always) About to End, No Zombies Required

By Kelly J. Murphy

…talk much about the impending end of the world with the Stracks and their contact ended in 2008. Nothing in the Strack’s house (and nothing they said to their neighbors or friends or family, at least as far as has been revealed to the press thus far) indicates why the Stracks thought the apocalypse loomed near in September 2014. There has been no mention of fear of a terrorist attack or a nuclear attack, of Jesus’ return or the book of Revelation…

Pope Backs Anti-Gay Referendum; Islamic State Executions Include Gay Syrian; ‘Conscience Clause’ Debated in Northern Ireland; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ent. As we have reported, Jamaica’s anti-gay leaders also get support from American and British anti-gay religious advocates, who have traveled to the Island to rally support for colonial-era sodomy laws that criminalize homosexuality. Tomlinson cites Peter LaBarbera among those anti-gay exports from the North that he says are constantly bombarding Jamaica to reinforce existing homophobia by saying that gays are a threat to children and must not b…