Religion Dispatches
…about my alma mater Morehouse College over the weekend. Gayle White of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution reported on institutional efforts to secure the aesthetic image of a “Morehouse Man.” Recently inaugurated Morehouse President Robert Franklin, a nationally renowned Christian social ethicist, now requires all incoming freshmen own and wear blazers with the Morehouse insignia, and has prohibited sagging jeans, flip flops and the wearing of h…
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…mething to Say.” Moving from the margins of the culture to its center, the Atlanta emcee was putting the hip-hop community on notice that Southern rappers had their own style. They didn’t need to imitate the content, norms, and styles of their East Coast and West Coast colleagues, because they had a distinct and culturally-rooted approach to the genre. Similarly, in the wake of public outcries about antisemitism and religious animosity, Andre3000’…
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…rica. Benjamin Elijah Mays, a preeminent president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, was not only a noted scholar with a dissertation on the sociology of the Black Church, but also a well-known preacher whose Christian ethic publicly informed his role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Towering above all when it comes to notoriety and influence was Martin Luther King, who occupied a large part of the American public and “space of opinion” w…
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…best and most self-reflective. When so much public God-talk is cringeworthy and meanspirited, it’s worth noting moments like these. Photo: Diocese of Atlanta. Dr. Jürgen Moltmann, Kelly Gissendaner and the Rev. Cathy Zappa….
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…me a long time and I hope that my regret for the long journey is clearly communicated in the book. I am sorry it took me so long to put it all together. It’s like being in a movie where someone is trying to crack a safe and there’s six numbers and you have to get all six numbers right for the safe to open. I think that’s what’s happened for me. Finally, all six numbers came up and I was able to open the safe and I could see this in a new way. Tha…
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…documentary informs us that the hair cut for temple sacrifices is now the number-one export out of India. The fact that tonsure, a religious act, has turned into a profiteering scheme is remarkable. But there also exist unscrupulous people who are stealing women’s hair, either while they sleep or in movie theaters where their braids or hair hang over the seats; while a woman is enjoying the latest from Bollywood, someone is cutting her hair and e…
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….E.M. will always be the source I credit for my kids’ awakening to the artistry and moral challenge that rock music at its best can deliver, Nirvana will provide the soundtrack to the fading images of one friend after another lost to the heroin that hit the alternative music scene in Atlanta as Nevermind hit the charts. Could anything be further from the nihilism of Nirvana’s distorted and driving chords than R.E.M.’s qualified insistence that the…
Read More…Oh, come on. Talking about the “biblical definition of the family unit” in today’s political climate means preventing same-sex couples from getting married, whether or not the words “gay marriage” are used—especially given criticism of Chick-Fil-A by gay-rights advocates for the millions of dollars the company has given to anti-gay organizations like the Family Research Council. Cathy’s intent would have been plenty clear even if he didn’t expound…
Read More…ticed one thing up here that I have seen *nowhere* else in the big city of Atlanta, one hundred miles to the south. I have seen “McCain-Palin” signs on countless front lawns up here. At home, I see the single name “McCain” in white letters on a deep blue background (usually with a link to his website), but not a hint of Governor Palin. At home, I see signs T-shirts and bumper stickers that say “McCain” and “Nobama,” but Sarah Palin is not a part o…
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…Joshi’s book, White Christian Privilege, then, feels all the more pressing today. The conspiracy theories swirling about Kamala Harris’s religious identity, for example, aren’t notable for whether or not they’re accurate, but rather for how they familiarly echo the ones circulated about President Barack Obama in denying blackness as representative of American political power. Similar interrogations of belonging can take place closer to home. In a…
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