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Pledging Virginity to Dad: A New Doc Explores the World of ‘Purity Balls’

By Jessica Valenti

…erican culture and politics. Filmmaker Mirjam von Arx follows the Colorado Springs-based Wilson family whose patriarch, Randy, invented purity balls. Von Arx focuses on one daughter in particular, Jordyn. (The Wilsons have five daughter and two sons.) Jordyn is college-aged but not in college. “I want to be a wife and a mother,” she says, “I would hate to go off and spend thousands of dollars on an education that I wouldn’t use.” She’s also the on…

It’s the Year of the Protester: Would Santa Occupy? How About Mother Teresa?

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…d did not (and do not) smell like a Carolina pine forest or fresh mountain springs. (Hear that, Mr. Gingrich? Would you have told Jesus to get a job and take a bath? Hmm, I sense an idea for a future post: Famous historical figures who Newt Gingrich thinks should get a job right after they have a bath. But I digress.) No, I think the decisive question is: Do the Occupiers smell better than twelfth-century European peasants? I’m thinking probably….

Pop-Eye: Meat The Wrestler

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…ronofsky’s tale is disinvested of tacky teardrops falling from the sky and cheap-trick resurrections. The reason reviewers passed over the religious is not simply, I suspect, because of religious illiteracy, but because of the received wisdom of late-modern culture that continues to dwell on a body-soul dualism, with the soul in power, the body a mere marionette. Several of the religious review sites described Randy’s body in metaphorical terms: R…

Ted Haggard’s New Church: Gay-Friendly?

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…nt to change. That’s the message of Haggard’s brand new church in Colorado Springs, which he announced this afternoon. Asked if his new church would take a position on homosexuality, Haggard said “we will take positions.” “I’m going to teach the Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse… but I don’t want to be a political activist.” Haggard explained that the church wouldn’t advocate a specific public policy, but would instead “encourage” members…

Dispatches from the Beltway: Beyond the Graying and Greening Religious Right

By Robert P. Jones

…le, James Dobson’s sprawling conglomerate has its own zip code in Colorado Springs and a larger monthly print circulation than the New York Times) and argue that it will not so easily wither on the vine. The most jaded on the left simply assert that the religious right is the truest expression of the heart of the evangelical community and is thus here to stay. If the argument that “the era of the religious right is over” depended solely on what on…

RDBook: Power Belongs to God

By Nathan Schneider

…r narrative arrives all the way at the door of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, the megachurch that Sharlet infiltrated for a gripping 2005 feature in Harper’s . Throughout, he suggests, the power principle is at the core of American Protestant fundamentalism, and The Family is its purest manifestation. So we don’t have to, Sharlet catches himself in the act: “We keep trying to explain away American fundamentalism.” Barack Obama’s notorious su…

By the Way: Fractured Religious Right Endorses McCain

By Randall Balmer

…e environment, God’s creation, in the interest of corporate profits. The failure of the gathering in Denver to transcend the tired playbook coming out of Colorado Springs illustrates both the myopia of the movement and the Religious Right’s paucity of leadership….

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…

RD News Round-Up—September 22, 2008

By Bill Berkowitz

…on the Family, insists that charges that the James Dobson-founded Colorado Springs, Colorado-based multi-million dollar media-ministry hates gays is unfair and unfounded. Fryrear, who sat down for an interview with citizenlink.com’s Jennifer Mesko, said that those allegations are “grossly inaccurate and patently unfair portrayal of how Focus on the Family and LWO (Love Won Out) feel about those who identify as gay or lesbian.” Focus apparently fel…

RDBook: Apocalypse Without God

By Nathan Schneider

…New Life Church’s World Prayer Center once… …I would like to do that. It’s cheap and they have hotel rooms—prayer closets, they call them. Or take the Crystal Cathedral. Right. Philip Johnson, who was a leading postmodern architect, designed the Crystal Cathedral. So what’s going on? As these systems become more complex, they become more volatile. As they become more volatile, you have to figure out how, in the economic realm, to manage risk. You…