Religion Dispatches
…______ Death Couture: Not for Halloween Only STEPHEN ANDES De-exoticizing Mexico’s patron saint of death Halloween, Evangelicals, and the Macabre JOHN W. MOREHEAD Reflections on our monstrous creations The Fear is Real: A New View of Halloween Hell Houses LUCIA HULSETHER A 90-minute walk through the South Georgia woods offers violence, fear, and an Obama-like Antichrist Jesus Goes to the Dark Carnival: Hell House Gets a Makeover W. SCOTT POOLE A…
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…en he joined the Mormon church and moved to North America, died in Sonora, Mexico in 1899, having moved there so he could practice polygamy unmolested by the US government. I always knew that polygamy was part of my legacy as a Latter-day Saint, even if I never knew exactly what to think of it. Currently the most notorious aspect of that legacy is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, otherwise known as the FLDS, the sect…
Read More…d institutionalize discrimination,” and quotes an activist saying that the number of threats against LGBT peoples is already on the rise. Nigeria: Jail the Gays Bill Pending Tris Reid-Smith reports for Gay Star News that the repressive “Jail the Gays” bill that passed the parliament in Nigeria in December has not yet been sent to President Goodluck Jonathan for his signature. If he returns the law to parliament with recommended changes, that coul…
Read More…lobe. Al-Jazeera America, for example, has recently reported on the rising number of Russians seeking asylum in the U.S. At the Capitol Hill event, activists described the many challenges facing asylum-seekers. For those who make claims when they arrive at a US border crossing, that includes detention, difficulties in accessing legal help, and violence in detention centers. Others who make it into the U.S. face challenges that include a one-year d…
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…ardless of religious identification, affiliation, or practice. There are a number of ways to read this small body of data. The first is, of course, that, growth in the unaffiliated notwithstanding, the majority of Americans still identify with one Christian tradition or another. If you’re outside of that normative religious core, you have to contend on some level with the more dominant religiosity of American culture. Nones—like Buddhists, Hindus,…
Read More…to answer for his endorsement of biblical patriarchy. Just this week, New Mexico Republican Steve Pearce, in a new book, writes that “the wife is to voluntarily submit, just as the husband is to lovingly lead and sacrifice” and “the husband’s part is to show up during the times of deep stress, take the leadership role and be accountable for the outcome, blaming no one else.” In 2011, Michele Bachmann had to explain what she meant in a 2006 speech…
Read More…andan boyfriend faces more serious charges and has received death threats. Mexico: Church and Mayor Running Anti-Gay Billboard Campaign Gay Star News reports this week that a Christian church has teamed up with a mayor to launch an anti-gay billboard campaign in the state of Chiapas, opposing laws on abortion, gay marriage, and legalization of marijuana, which the billboards say violate God’s law. The billboards include a Bible verse that says the…
Read More…a primitive radio god who faked her own kidnapping to cover up a tryst in Mexico. Given this history, the absence of religious landmarks is striking. It would have been easy enough to paste symbols of Los Angeles’s spiritual history into Her, shot mostly in Shanghai—but L.A. serves as more than a backdrop. It is a physical manifestation of a spiritual problem plaguing most of the human characters in the film, and Theodore most acutely. This absen…
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…very busy—too busy—but then I also retreat to this desert solitude in New Mexico. This has been a very hard time for me. It is so strange to be so hated by so many church leaders. However, I just had an incredible few weeks in South Africa. I met a lot of great people, saw a lot, and learned a lot about the thousands who gave their lives to struggle against apartheid. I spent a great day with Archbishop Tutu, who is one of my heroes and my friend…
Read More…, but The Gothamist has done this theory one better by suggesting that the number “93”—which appears on a tag on the goat’s ear—is linked to Aleister Crowley’s philosophy of Thelema. (One wonders how much time the alleged Thelemites spent finding a goat with a numerologically significant ear tag). Growing up in Texas, I once had the misfortune of getting into a conversation with a Renaissance Faire enthusiast whose hobby was blacksmithing his own…
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