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Trump’s Magical Appeal: A Dated Anthropologist Offers Clues

By Elijah Siegler

…rank and authority of a chief or king,” he wrote in The Golden Bough, the best of them “perceive how easy it is to dupe their weaker brother and to play on his superstition for their own advantage. Not that the sorcerer is always a knave and impostor; he is often sincerely convinced that he really possesses those wonderful powers which the credulity of his fellows ascribes to him.” The savviest magician-king, in other words, tells the people what…

Why The Book of Mormon (the Musical) is Awesomely Lame

By Jared Farmer

…n political and sexual oppression. Mormonism was equated to white slavery. Bestselling authors such Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Zane Grey cast Mormons as depraved villains. Latter-day Saints were variously likened to “Oriental,” “Asiatic,” “Turkish,” and “Mohammedan” peoples. Even today, more than 120 years after the prophet Wilford Woodruff officially disavowed the practice of polygamy, the media routinely conflates the LDS Church with Mormon fund…

Racial Justice Will Be Top Priority for New Prez of the United Church of Christ

By Frederick Clarkson

…p struggling and to plan to “die with dignity.” You’ve also said that “the best days of the United Church of Christ are ahead of us.” What do the best days look like in a time of managing what you’ve called “diminishment”? For me, it is important to see the 1957 merger that created the United Church of Christ—not as the establishment of an institutional expression of the church or the creation of a new denominational identity, but as the birth of…

In Praise of Mary Magdalene

By Garret Keizer

…f God is dead, Mary will see to the corpse. When The God Delusion tops the best seller list, she’s the one dusting off the Torah scrolls in the discount bin. If there is a path beyond belief and beyond atheism—which, after all, is but another form of belief, and lately a rather fundamentalist form to boot—Mary Magdalene walks that path. I have met others walking it with her, carrying their disillusionment like a cross. And still they show up, in p…

Disney’s Lump of Coal

By Anthea Butler

…summer of my youth visiting the “Evangeline Oak” in St. Martinsville, you best believe I spit out my goobers on that one. I suppose this was Disney’s way of being clever and trying to keep alive the memory of the legend, but it obscures what the real story has to offer. Places and things also get short shrift as a rule, but the bayou, depicted as a place of danger and wonder, may be the best the film has to offer. New Orleans has some of its char…

How to Meet Muslims: A (Cinematic) Primer

By Haroon Moghul

…d in the village, sad attempts to forget historic violence and move on, as best as possible. We see in this unsettling film the true cost of extremism, and the ways in which it has undermined, cruelly and uniquely, the religious culture of the societies it does not spring from so much as it consumes from within. If I have a quarrel with the film, it is the suggestion that such extremism can be blamed solely on the 1980s dictatorship of Gen. Zia u…

Every Homo Reptilia is Somebody’s Sister: Doctor Who Part VI

By Gabriel Mckee

…is, you tell people there was a chance, but you were so much less than the best of humanity.” His turn of phrase is a bit prettier (as is his later order to “Be extraordinary”), but I think it’s important—and a sign of Doctor Who’s moral optimism—that this message came from a human being first. The alien Doctor may be this show’s de facto messiah, but the ethical message he brings comes from ourselves first. If it’s just the Doctor telling us to “…

Pagan Martyrs, Murderous Monks: Agora Hits US Shores

By Nathan Schneider

…ncile—not least because of Hypatia’s inconvenient celibacy—is also Agora’s best hope. It comes as a welcome contrast, for instance, to HBO’s Rome, which turns figures like Cicero and Cato into wimps compared to a muscular Mark Antony, with no mention of the intellectual feats by which we now know them best. Ancient world or this one, big ideas don’t easily compete on screen with messy power struggles and lustrous bodies. But it’s worth a try. “I b…

Mass Bible-Based Sexual Dysfunction as Root of Culture Wars? Frank Schaeffer Breaks It Down

By Frank Schaeffer

…ke-home message for readers? To be true to what I hope is the heart of the best of the universal religious message, I want to say that redemption through selflessness, hope, and love necessitates a new and fearless repudiation of the parts of holy books and traditions—be they Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or other—that bring us messages of hate, exclusion, racism, ignorance, misogyny, homophobia, tribalism, and fear. To find any spiritual truth withi…

2010: What Did We Believe In?

By Gary Laderman

…to be reckoned with and has myriad forms of expression, commitment, moral codes, and values—just like global Christianity. In the U.S., Muslims are increasingly part of the social landscape, with mosques, community centers, and public figures (including the first Muslim Miss America and the easy reelection of one of the two Muslim members of Congress) who contribute to the fabulous religious mosaic that characterizes the best of American values….