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“Hey You! Anti-Semite!”: A Jewish Krewe does Mardi Gras

By Barbra Barnett

…had subversive qualities. During the feasting and merriment of pre-Lenten carnival celebrations, the peasantry could temporarily cast off the shackles of Church-enforced restrictions on carnal appetites. The Krewe of Zulu and Krewe du Jieux challenge a different kind of convention, the convention of political correctness, which may be more effective at driving hateful speech underground than eliminating it altogether. These krewes openly confront…

Noah v. Kitschy Jesus: A Tale of Two Movies

By Jay Michaelson

…an’t quite pinpoint what all of these had in common, except that they were cheap, over-simplified, and kitschy. And thanks to Walter Benjamin, Clement Greenberg, the Frankfurt School, and a legion of writers and musicians allergic to the cliché, I came to reject kitsch and its quasi-fascistic associations. Feel this way, think this way, act this way—no! It took another several years before I really understood that some people, perhaps most people,…

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

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…ry recent Disney and Pixar animated film from The Little Mermaid to Shrek, Cars to Finding Nemo—hero stories all. The birth of the Disney Corporation itself, and of the cartoon mouse later named Mickey, began with the success of Steamboat Willie (1928), a film borrowed wholeheartedly from the great Buster Keaton film Steamboat Bill from earlier that year. Likewise, Shakespeare’s King Lear is a retelling of an older Celtic legend, which is then rec…

Doubt v. Predator: A Vatican II Parable

By Gabriel Mckee

…l made in the play, but it’s still clear: Doubt paints a picture, from the cheap seats of the Bronx, of the Church in mid-transformation. But things are even more complicated than that, as the story is also an elaborate critique of the way power is wielded in the Church—and the fact that Vatican II managed to change very little. Sister Aloysius is paralyzed by her position, unable to do anything about Father Flynn directly because the Monsignor wi…

Richard Dawkins’ Atheist Academy of Unguided Truth

By Paul Wallace

…God loves you because your priest told you so? And so on. These were not cheap shots. He was serious. He loved us, he loved his job, and his questions were troubling. Some students wept. At which point he would offer Kleenexes. It was in Fr. Cavanaugh’s class that I began to see that all true education is intensely personal. Dawkins’ distaste for an officially atheist academy may be mere iconoclasm. But maybe not. Maybe it’s closer to the truth…

On the 40th Anniversary of Hyde, A Theological Defense of Reproductive Justice

By Anita Little

…l women across the state of Tennessee by fighting for access to full healthcare and scientifically accurate reproductive health information. My role is to educate and organize people of faith around these different issues. Reproductive justice as a framework is not all about abortion, it’s about how all the other things in a person’s life impact them in such a way that they end up in that moment of having to make a decision about an abortion. We w…

In Hamline Case, the ‘Free Expression vs. Religious Sensibilities’ Frame Obscures a Stark Reality About Higher Education

By Junaid Jahangir

…nging rainbow flags to promote Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) is a cheap tactic if LGBTQ employees are treated poorly when it comes to pay, benefits, leave, promotion, and job security. Divide-and-rule is not a new tactic, for it’s well known in the Indian subcontinent that the British pitted one local Raja against the other based on tribe, religion, or caste—among other factors. The same applies to corporations as they stoke divisiveness…

Note for Today

By Amina Wadud

…ve pants and long tops, dresses, and scarves. I feel like I need one more scarf. Not for sheer number, but for style; there are so many styles, and one has to decide what works best individually. I have my long prayer scarves that do not need any pins to be neatly kept in place. But they are really long, and I wish I had at least one as neat, but shorter. I want to be hands-free and secure at the same time. I have long rectangular shapes that get…

In a Time of Irrational Fear and New Media: The Deadly ‘Dance Plague’ at 500

By Ed Simon

…haos of the medieval Shrovetide, the pre-Lenten season best known for wild Carnival celebrations, the most famous of which in the U.S. is Mardi Gras—which saw the ordination of an “Abbot of Unreason” or the coronation of a “Lord of Misrule.” Should it be any wonder then, this state of eternal carnival? For the subjects of Strasbourg, the Abbot of Unreason found a home within their very minds, the Lord of Misrule residing in their souls. A wake for…

This is Not a Religion Column: Christian Candidate Quiz Bowl

By Jeff Sharlet

…y, as seriously as we take their foreign policy platforms and their health care plans. Let’s ask the toughest questions we can. Not, “Is Obama secretly a Muslim?”—that’s a stupid question. Rather, let’s quiz McCain on his new Baptist credentials, ask Hillary why she rejects the social gospel, demand that Obama explain how, exactly, he will be “guided by prayer” in the oval office, as he boasted in a mailer to South Carolina voters. All three pres…