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A New Book Traces the Influence of Racism and Imperialism on White Christian Feminism

…f them chose to turn their attention to domestic Christianization as their new mission front. During a time of heated schisms among fundamentalist and evangelical groups and amidst the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan rallying against immigrants, people of color, Catholics, and Jews, mainline Protestant women’s church councils increasingly emphasized interdenominational, interreligious, and interracial cooperation. Mainline Protestant women’s organi…

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Ask the Dust: Unbelievers, Bunker-Dwellers, Anti-Natalists

…imits and used by the group to make me feel shameful I can’t entertain any new ideas that don’t come from the group or group leader I can’t talk to my parents (I mean more than I couldn’t talk to them before) I’ve developed new coping mechanisms to get through things in the group that make me uncomfortable a la Kimmy Schmidt’s “You can stand anything for 10 seconds. Then you just start on a new 10 seconds.” I’m considering participating in a group…

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Meditation is Very Relaxing, Says New York Times

…this is a kind of affectation, a tactical deployment of skepticism and I’m-new-to-this innocence. I hope so. The kosher Buddhism presented in “Buddhists’ Delight” is basically relaxation. Not so relaxed that we forget about our liberal political commitments, but relaxed enough that we don’t check our Blackberries when they buzz. Interestingly, right after I read Atlas’ essay, I went to a session at the Mind and Life conference on new clinical stud…

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Dominion Theology, Christian Reconstructionism, and the New Apostolic Reformation

…itten extensively about Reconstructionists and Sarah has written about the New Apostolic Reformation here and here. Moreover Sarah and Anthea Butler have just posted a terrific overview of the NAR, Pentecostalism, and dominionism in which they critique both the denialists who say that dominionism doesn’t exist, and alarmists who fail to properly contextualize dominionists’ activities. Christian Reconstructionism is the older of the two movements (…

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Is God a Delusion? A Reply to Religion’s Cultured Despisers

…ship of educated people who were interested in the questions raised by the new atheists. And I wanted both theists and atheists to find the book challenging and thought-provoking. Some recent responses to the new atheists are full of rhetorical jabs and belligerent verbal attacks clearly meant to appeal to a loyal following of believers, readers who want to cheer and pump their fists as “their guy” strikes back against the opponent. People who are…

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The New Age Fantasy of a Celtic Church that Revered Nature and the Divine Feminine Never Existed — So What?

…d Chasing Dreams explains that today the myth of a Celtic Church attracts “New Agers, post-modernists, liberals, feminists, [and] environmentalists.” While it’s true that many of these groups’ tales of their own origins are mythic—as with any religion, denomination, or sect—the mythic has always served a purpose: to generate usable history, helpful fiction. While Arnold J. Toynbee in the second volume of his landmark A Study of History describes a…

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The Cubit Vs. “New Age Colbert,” JP Sears

…el, AwakenWithJP, where he’s developed a following for his wry send-ups of New Age culture via his alter ego “Ultra Spiritual” JP Sears, a kind of Stephen Colbert for the New Age set. Dressed in a purple T-shirt and pale green headband, with a flower tucked into his chest-length red hair. Ultra Spiritual JP delivers earnest, convoluted advice on everything from vegetarianism to ayahuasca to the psychology of the selfie, all in pitch-perfect deadpa…

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Transgender, Scientologist, “Cult Hero”

…ous or dogmatic reason. His words were valued in the same way as, say, the New Age ‘Law of Attraction’ (formerly known as New Thought): based on their supposedly demonstrable truth, not their religious authority. The devotion of Scientologists to Hubbard may have been weird, slavish, and naïve—but it wasn’t really religious. Or was it? Scientology was intentionally designed to comfort the afflicted, just like religion does. And, just like religion…

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The Surprisingly Short History of Popular Yoga

…drawing from Hugh Urban’s work here. He has suggested that tantra and the new age movement intersect where bodily, sexual, and material enjoyment are integrated into spiritual pursuits and that, simultaneously, this integration reflects an intersection between tantra and contemporary consumer culture. In other words, what the New Age movement shares with consumer culture can be found in tantra, the preeminent South Asian model of nondualism. In m…

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In the Story of the New Testament We Are the Romans—No Matter Who Wins the Election

…e statues were less about honoring the Civil War dead than they were about promoting 20th century white supremacy). In some ways, it’s not all that different from the ideas that sold people on the first Crusade back in the 11th century. And it’s not all that different from the story we tell ourselves today, every time we enter another country for their “own good.” Sure, we went into Iraq on the basis of false information about WMDs. But in the rhe…

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