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Prophets of the Environmental Apocalypse

By Peter Laarman

…lethal nuclear fission process might be seen as but another mainstay of American prosperity, powering our homes and factories with new supplies of electric power that would be “too cheap to meter.” In 1957 Walt Disney even released a movie titled Our Friend, the Atom. Looking back now, it’s quite easy to see why the happy talk from Ike and Walt failed to quell our nuclear nightmares. In somewhat the same way that climate change denialism functions…

The Birth of Un-Cool: How Disgusted Liberals Became Neoconservatives

By Michelle Goldberg

…ores of their class by celebrating NASCAR, megachurches, guns and cheap American beer. They congratulated themselves for being more in touch with everyday people than their snobby peers. And then something changed, and suddenly they realized they had little in common with people like Joe the Plumber and the acolytes of Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin. Social conservatives, especially the religious right, have become a bit of an embarrassment and an…

First Things First: Sexual Equality Just Is

By Kate Blanchard

…xplaining why this is a bad thing. Although every evangelical pastor in America today must have a beautiful wife to put on ostentatious display (preferably with 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 seco…

70th National Prayer Breakfast Made ‘Cosmetic’ Changes, But Biden Delivered the Same Old Tone-Deaf ‘Unity’ Message

By Chrissy Stroop

…ividual. Biden went on to hit many notes that are alienating to secular Americans and much of the Democratic base, sacralizing American political life and calling for “unity” and “comity” with those who want to deprive the marginalized of their rights. Gushing over the NPB itself, Biden stated that he was “honored to continue the tradition started by President Eisenhower.” From there, he launched into what amounts to a Christian sermon peppered wi…

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

By Brittany Shoot

…ssues, the questions of justice in the workplace—fair payment and decent wages—are valid, and quite significant, moral questions.” Bobo added, “Faith cannot be relegated to only the personal and private.” Lambert’s book adds much to the discussion of Christianity in the American workplace, and it can serve as a valuable historical text in a still-underdeveloped discipline. But the contradictions left unexplored are dismaying, and one can only hope…

Body Language: Michael Jackson and the Illogic of White Superiority

By Anthony B. Pinn

…rrison pointed out the ‘wish’ of sameness—the desire on the part of some African Americans to see reflected in themselves and through themselves the ‘ideal’ depicted in US popular culture. Morrison referenced blue eyes, and Michael Jackson’s body came to mirror this desire to be different, to change the flesh to fit the dominant ideal. There is certainly something to the manner in which white supremacy shapes and represents through numerous outlet…

The Moral Bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Asceticism

By Vlad Chituc

…is unethical, I wonder how he imagines those clothes in China are made so cheaply, and whether an industrial factory qualifies as a gauntlet. If Rhinehart washed his clothes himself, however, he would need a washing machine, which takes energy, and he couldn’t say he lived on a battery anymore. A commenter on Rhinehart’s post aptly called this brand of asceticism “consumption laundering”; because Rinehart doesn’t do the consumption himself, it do…

Doubt v. Predator: A Vatican II Parable

By Gabriel Mckee

…Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan vehicle Joe Versus the Volcano addresses many 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…

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

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…Lee’s film is rearranged into the Latino-oriented Tortilla Soup, and the African-American-centered Soul Food. On another scale, the television series Lost could easily be renamed “The Lord of the X-Files,” as it is a reinvention of William Golding’s 1954 novel Lord of the Flies, mixed with X-Files intrigue (and frustration), a bit of Gilligan’s Island, and populated by a character list of Who’s Who in Philosophy: John Locke, Desmond “David” Hume,…

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,…