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The Master: “It’s Not the L. Ron Story”

…other reason that Anderson deserves recognition as an honorary scholar of new religious movements is that his curiosity about new religions has brought him into conflict with a culture that still approaches the religious other through an un-nuanced “us vs. them” mentality. Most religion scholars who deal heavily with new religious movements have been branded as “cult apologists” at some point in their careers. At stake in this accusation is an as…

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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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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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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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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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Is Bill Barr’s Belief in a Powerful President Actually Religious? A ‘High Papal’ Fable

…ient truth. Another weakness in Holland’s claim that the emergence of “the new suffering Christ” was a “new and momentous understanding” is that so many of the cases recounted in the book’s 21 chapters have actually little or nothing to do with “the new suffering Christ.” If this new image matters as much as Holland claims, why not all the principal cases, instead of just some? Yet, even those cases in which the “crucified Christ” figures don’t al…

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You Are What You Eat: New Book on Cannibalism Reimagines What It Means to Be Made of Flesh

…abella of Spain forbade Columbus and his crew from enslaving people in the New World, unless those people were cannibals. If they were cannibals, the Queen announced, Columbus could take them, put them in chains, and sell them wherever he pleased, inside or outside Isabella’s many realms. Reports of cannibalism in the New World spiked. In general, cannibalism is widely reported but difficult to confirm. Subjects will often tell ethnographers about…

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The Belly of the Beast: NYC’s Shiny New Transit Hub Is All Wrong for the 9/11 Site

…he proud twin towers of the World Trade Center proclaimed the dominance of New York City’s finance industry. But what we remember is the horrifying day all the unsuspecting people in those towers were attacked—and the number of New York’s finest who lost their lives helping people to safety. This is a city that values sticking up for one another. We don’t look back on 9/11 with fond nostalgia for our financial monoliths; we remember the pain, the…

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Special Series: Can We Call the New Zealand Terrorist a ‘Christian’ White Nationalist?

…contributors below and make up your own mind. — eds For all pieces on the New Zealand terrorist attack, click here. Below are the pieces that directly address the “White Christian Nationalism” question: March 18: Behind New Zealand Terror Attack Is a Problem Bigger Than Islamophobia (Murali Balaji) March 21: White Christian Nationalism May Not Be Religious, But It Is Christian (Murali Balaji) March 29: The White Nationalist Fantasy of Ancient Chr…

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Devil’s Bookmark: Atheism for Smarties

…, and Nietzschean philosophy (James and Freud), man had the need to find a new God. That new God, according to Lukacs, is the omniscient narrator who, god-like, creates worlds and populates them with actors, as well as inventing goals and life-paths for his protagonists, all the while holding the strings in his (invisible) hands. Well, if metafiction is the death of the omniscient narrator, it may well be the death of the God-substitute as well. M…

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