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“My Scientology Movie” Pokes the Hornet’s Nest

By Gordon Haber

…get anyone from the church to talk to him, he decides to investigate “the spirit of Scientology” by hiring actors to re-enact moments from church history, most notably the violent tirades of its current leader, David Miscavige. To make his fake movie, Theroux elicits the help of Marty Rathbun, a former high-ranking official in the Church of Scientology. Rathbun, for good reason, gets a lot of screen time. He’s an articulate, charismatic presence,…

Elizabeth Warren, American Evangelist

By Peter Laarman

…of Something Much Greater ( this isn’t my choice, it’s my calling ) A new spirit is loose in the land – the spirit of rebellion and liberation and deliverance from our common bondage In Organized Money we face a Satan who is wily and unrelenting and who must be resisted at each and every turn Acting together in resistance actually changes reality, creates community, and helps break the chains of oppression Together we can forge a righteous army c…

Claiming Yoga for India

By Andrea R. Jain

…er essentializing definition of yoga as “a means of uniting the individual spirit with the universal spirit of God” and links yoga to a specific canonical text, the Yoga Sutras. +++ The debates described above involve attempts to define yoga in ways that limit it to within certain bounded categories of identity, belief, or behavior, such as “exercise,” “religion,” “Indian,” or “Hindu.” But yoga identities have not been static or one-dimensional. I…

The Biblical Circus of William Stringfellow

By Nathan Schneider

…Though scathingly critical of religion, the churches, and individualistic “spirituality,” few Americans since Jonathan Edwards have understood so well the urgency of theology. “There is nothing whatever in the experience of men or nations that is not essentially theological,” Stringfellow wrote in a tangent in A Second Birthday, a memoir about the crippling illness that befell him. This could sound like mere apologetics for his medium, which many…

What Good Is It for Union to Gain the World, But Forfeit Its Soul?

By Yazmine Nichols

…gion can be used toward capitalistic ends. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber compares Benjamin Franklin with wealthy banker Jacob Fugger. For Weber, the men represent two sides of the same capitalist coin. While Fugger is unapologetically self-interested and uncaring, Franklin imagines his actions as morally praiseworthy. Weber contends that what characterizes people like Franklin is a belief that their work is the work o…

What a Forgotten 19th Century Suffragist Can Teach Us About Women’s Rights vs. The Religious Right

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…ches to the ancient myths. At the same time the new religious movements of Spiritualism and Theosophy, both founded by women, gave her new channels to understand a revived sense of the sacred. Among a significant minority of thinkers of her age, Gage also recognized that she was living in lands that continued to be inhabited by native people, and she turned to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) societies, finding a strikingly different approach to gende…

Where are the Blessed Peacemakers?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…at which protects the center of human thought and reason—and “sword of the Spirit” are not of course acts of aggression, but words. Hence, likewise, the sword of justice wielded in the Revelation of John (Rev. 19:11-15)—the New Testament book most often cited in violent, apocalyptic Christian fantasies—extends from the mouth of the white-robed representation of the risen Christ. He slays the forces of cosmic evil not with physical aggression, but…

Inauguration: An Evangelical And A Gay Bishop—What’s Missing?

By Robert V. Thompson

…rent traditions while standing before the world in unity. The “yes we can” spirit affirms a deeper unity amidst our diversity. The “yes we can” spirit includes women, African Americans and evangelicals. It includes the LBGT community, all parties in the Middle East, includes Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, employed and unemployed—the list is endless. What if the opening prayer at the inauguration were a call to recognize that we are all…

The Other Puritan Dinner Party

By Joanna Brooks

…od on the side of grace, communicated immediately to believers by the Holy Spirit, no need for Church leaders. For her outspokenness, Anne Hutchinson was put on trial by clergy and colonial leaders for dishonoring the “fathers of the commonwealth” and of other behavior “not fitting for [her] sex.” She was put under house arrest, then banished from the colony. In her story, I saw the story of so many religions that attain worldly power and institut…

The Conservative Bible Project: Looking for Conservative Diamonds in a Liberal Dung-Hill

By Thomas Fabisiak

…Mark’s feelings about young girls, the translators maintain that “unclean spirit” should be translated as “Satan,” that “cast lots,” should be translated as “gambling,” that “holy spirit,” should be translated “divine guide,” and that logos, or “word,” should be translated “truth.” Some of the translators have even suggested that the title “Pharisee” should be translated as “elite,” “self-proclaimed elite,” “intellectual,” or “liberal.” On the ma…