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Sometimes Salvation Looks Like Rage: An Open Letter to “Non-denominational” Churches

By Yazmine Nichols

…ts cease, and the friendships end (scriptures such as Matthew 5:30; Matthew 18:15-17; and 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 are usually cited as reasons for “radical” acts of amputation). But how are we defining what is radical? Are we only radical when it comes to sexual sin? Are we radical in our love for the poor? Throughout the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, God commands the people to take care of the neighbor. The neighbor is the prostitute, the wido…

Pop-Eye: Meat The Wrestler

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…nt to get to some core non-physical identity, some materially transcendent spirit, some individuality that is more about the myth of modern individualism than about anything religious. Therein they miss the (religious) point. And this is where I will go on record to suggest that Darren Aronofsky is one of the greatest living religious filmmakers. I confess, I’ve been a fan since his first feature length film, π (alternatively titled: Pi: Faith in…

Dying in Dirty Places: How to Honor the Dead in the Era of Ecocide

By Ryann Croken

…also a charter boat captain, had had his ashes deposited after his death in 1997. But now, in the post-Deepwater disaster era, there was a problem with this plan: the burial-at-sea site was infested with oil. Kruse’s surviving brother, Frank, explained this complication to reporters at al.com, “We’d like to [scatter his ashes] sooner rather than later, but we really don’t know when we’ll be able to do it because you can’t predict what the oil’s go…

Where Did White Evangelicalism’s Hatred of Critical Race Theory Really Begin?

By Andre E. Johnson

…l (Dallas Statement) opened the floodgates for critiques on CRT. In Article 1 it reads: We deny that Christian belief, character, or conduct can be dictated by any other authority, and we deny that the postmodern ideologies derived from intersectionality, radical feminism, and critical race theory are consistent with biblical teaching. We further deny that competency to teach on any biblical issue comes from any qualification for spiritual people…

Voodoo’s Quest for Respect

By Spencer Dew

…ikewise disturbing are two central practices: the sacrifice of animals and spirit possession. The former is bloody, the latter theatrical and sometimes violent, as dancing practitioners lapse into ritual trances and are “ridden” by loas from the Voodoo pantheon. Such acts strike many outsiders as “Satanic,” an inaccurate but nonetheless damaging label with which Voodoo is frequently plastered. Compounding the problem is Voodoo’s symbolism, promine…

The Real (and More Interesting) World Behind Magic in the Moonlight

By David Walker

…might they continue to represent or perform spiritualism? In what ways are spiritualists and anti-spiritualists already married? To these ends Billy Robinson might be as good a guide as any. In my humble opinion the man deserves a movie—if not precisely this one. Go to top *The best account of Billy Robinson’s career is Jim Steinmeyer, The Glorious Deception: The Double Life of William Robinson, aka Chung Ling Soo, the “Marvelous Chinese Conjurer”…

RDPulpit: Obama Missed the Hope in State of the Union Address

By Daniel Schultz

…the most muted of tones at the end of the speech, touching on Americans’ “spirit of determination and optimism” in the face of adversity. Prophetic speech must also recognize the power of language to “shape consciousness and define reality.” If the royal consciousness is be unseated, its control over our vocabulary must be contested, its largely unseen effects exposed. This is hardly a radical insight for those who have studied political struggle…

“Mad to Be Saved”: On the Road as Cautionary Tale

By Jay Michaelson

…o yearns for a love that Dean can never fully give him. With the sensual spirituality (or spiritual paganism, if you like) secularized into mere “kicks,” the moral balance of On the Road lurches to one side. In the book, there’s a productive tension between the evanescent, yet incandescent, mysticism of pure human experience on the one hand, and the deep ethical consequences of human relationship on the other. This is a crucial and recurring rel…

Are Evangelicals Sweetness and Light or Enablers of Cruelty and Racism? Gender Roles Hint at an Answer

By Kristin Kobes Du Mez

…ng one’s neighbor and one’s enemies, or indeed by any of the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, or self-control. But the rugged, even reckless masculinity championed by evangelicals has always been accompanied by a softer, feminine side. In fact, it was precisely the loveliness, purity, and vulnerability of women that required the protection of tough, masculine men. In the words of bestselling evangel…

I Want a Perfect Body

By Jeremy Biles

…mprovement shifts the aims of asceticism; the body is no longer a means to spiritual illumination but an end in itself. “The new idea offered by the contemporary culture of cosmetic surgery,” writes Mead, “is that it is the vessel itself that we must value, rather than the soul or spirit that it contains.” Modern body perfectionists seek to transcend the limits of the “natural” body (if ever there was such a thing) through drugs, exercise, diet, a…