Religion Dispatches
…democracy—a principled stand is sometimes a partisan stand.) Following the latest in the Egyptian military’s unprovoked assaults on civilian protesters, who reasonably enough are furious with the cancellation of their vote, the same kinds of conflations continue to be made. It’s as if we cannot bring ourselves to believe that people who wear suits and ties, go to beaches for vacation, put religion on the backburner, and otherwise say and do the “r…
Read MoreThe subject of The Wooster Group’s latest work, Early Shaker Spirituals by the Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, may elicit chuckles. After all, the last time the company based shows on recorded music, they came out with “Hula” and “LSD: Only the High Points.” But there’s no one better prepared to interpret the work of the celibate, plain-living religious group than this wildly experimental group of artists. Both are pioneers in their f…
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…y communicating ideas to people with whom they disagree, those who hope to promote unbelief in the public square ought to find symbols and stories that express something other than all that is implied by the giant “A” of negation; they should say something more compelling than “it’s not true!” Like what? This holiday season, public atheists might do well to listen to a little Christmas music. Specifically, this instant classic by the singer-songwr…
Read More…that lives in the real world, not in Colleen’s fantasy world.” As in this latest instance, statements made “in character” were presented out of context. In any case, the strategy backfired. Not only did Lachowicz win the election, but outraged gamers around the country donated $6300 to political action committees that supported her campaign. This most recent incident shows that appealing to fears of deviant hobbies is still a strategy in the Repu…
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…mattered. And it was especially true of religious people. Son of God, the latest cultural product aimed at the supposedly burgeoning Christian consumer public, embodies this mode of kitsch religiosity. Of course Jesus is hot, white, and soulful. Of course he is just absolutely perfect. That’s what a religious person should aspire to be: nice, clean, square, entirely in major key. More than the Biblical literalism of the film—a term which is hardl…
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First, a spoiler alert of sorts: the “half” in S. Brent Plate’s latest book is us. That is, the seeking, incomplete human body. Plate, a longtime RD writer and Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Hamilton College, contends that religion is a physical activity, the spiritual experienced through our senses. And each of those five other objects—stones, incense, drums, crosses, and bread—have a sensory component. (You can read an ada…
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….3 million people whose benefits were about to expire are just some of the latest examples of the heartless approach to poverty and unemployment that characterizes contemporary policy making. Not only have millions of the long-term unemployed started the New Year with no safety net, but many of those with full-time jobs earn less than the poverty level for a family of four (18 million people in 2012 or 17.5 percent of all full-time, year-round wor…
Read More…t exclusively employed by groups oriented to aggressive action. Yet PLAL’s latest action is unusual in that it named clinic escort and activist Katie Klabusich and pro-choice journalist Robin Marty, in addition to Dr. Cheryl Chastine. Scheidler defended the decision based on the fact that these women are hardly anonymous, noting that both Klabusich and Marty write often on the subject and that they have photos associated with that work. When asked…
Read More…il the 1986 “Born Again” story arc. The introduction of Kamala Khan is the latest in the longstanding tradition of comic books diversifying their characters to better reflect and reach out to their audiences. More specifically, Ms. Marvel #1 is part of the All-New Marvel NOW!, an initiative with the explicit aim of attracting new readers, much like DC Comics’ The New 52 revamp. The last few years have seen several other notable attempts at creatin…
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…ical scientific theory, and where did it come from? Mary-Jane Rubenstein’s latest book takes up these questions and more, tracing a history of multiple-world cosmologies that highlights the philosophical, mythological, and theological precedents for today’s scientific theories. Rubenstein also demonstrates how multiverse cosmologies can be a site for “reconfiguring” the traditional boundaries between science and religion. RD spoke with Rubenstein…
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