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The Higher the Dome, The Closer to God: “Megachurches” Explores the Arid Architecture of America’s New Sanctuaries

By Anita Little

…eeriness of all the images together was intentional or if it’s just an eye-of-the-beholder thing? It just is what it is. That’s what it looks like. That’s what that strain of faith looks like. Like the look of Catholic cathedrals is very different from megachurches because there really is an idea of the divine in the architecture. Megachurches are more about having a big enough space for everyone to fit in, so it’s really not about this feeling o…

Sean Feucht’s New Year’s Rockin’ Superspreader Revival is a ‘Tepid and Meager’ Effort at Racial Reconciliation

By Isaiah Murtaugh

…zusa Street is little more than a brick-lined pedestrian alley in downtown Los Angeles, across the street from a bank and a cell phone store and a block away from a Little Tokyo walking mall. But up on a streetlight at the alley’s entrance, a city historical marker is tacked: Azusa St. Mission… Cradle of the Worldwide Pentecostal Movement. For some, this is sacred ground: the place where the Azusa Street Revival, the founding moment of the modern…

Rejecting Blood Sacrifice Theology, Again

By Peter Laarman

…eption of Christ’s atoning work is of the standard, unreconstructed, washed-in-the-blood variety. For them, discovering what Jones is writing about would come as manna in the wilderness, and in that regard Jones has performed a mitzvah by publishing this book. “Penal substitution” is the proper name for the viewpoint Jones wishes to challenge. The doctrine holds that God’s holiness is sufficiently offended by human sin, and by my sin in particular…

Wal-Mart Faces a New Round of Historic Strikes… But Why Now?

By Sarah Jaffe

…local residents who desperately need them. As a faith leader in an African-American congregation with a social gospel history, Jones was deeply involved in that struggle, and it was through that work in DC—a long way, both literally and metaphorically, from Bentonville—that he was connected with OUR Wal-Mart and their campaign for Wal-Mart workers. For him it was an easy decision to get involved and to travel the country, organizing with the work…

In the Age of Megachurches, Sometimes Less Is More

By Richard Flory

…tors and members of megachurches, mid- sized and small churches all around Los Angeles and Seoul, South Korea. We have watched as megachurches have been founded and grown, while other megachurches have shrunk or diminished. In at least one case, we’ve seen a megachurch go out of business altogether and then re-form as a much smaller church. And, we have observed several thriving and innovative churches that are small by design, allowing them to nu…

Dining with Dawkins in the Humanist Bosom

By Edward J. Larson

…ns’ approach may please secular humanists—it clearly pleased this crowd in Los Angeles—without making much headway in converting creationists. To tell anyone who identifies with an idea that her ideas are stupid is tantamount to calling her stupid no matter what gloss Dawkins wants to put on it. Still, he had this audience eating out of the palm of his hand. I was hoping for a reasoned presentation of his theories and their impact, such as about h…

Religion Reporting as Therapy? Praying for Help with Budget Crisis…

By Michael J. Altman

…gether to ask for divine intervention in the budget crisis. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Dodgers are relying on ‘V energy’ to try and make a run at the MLB playoffs. They recently hired a spiritual healer and scientist to bring the team positive energy that will improve performance on the field and fill the stands. The Freedom From Religion Foundation is trying to keep churches empty, however, through their Chicago bus advertisements encouraging the…

It’s the Catholic Bishops, Not Those Who Toppled Junipero Serra Statues, Who Have Failed the Test of History

By Jacqueline M. Hidalgo

…stors,” pulled down another iconic Serra statue, this time in the heart of Los Angeles at Placita Olvera. The California Catholic Conference of Bishops (CCCB) responded with more empty support of anti-racist movements, yet they refuse to grapple with the ways that racism and colonial violence have structured Catholic history (let alone its current structures, and its material wealth). The Bishops accused the protesters of failing the test of histo…

Taking the Economy Back From the Elites: Blessed Are the Organized

By Nathan Schneider

…nie and I hit it off during that first visit, and he invited me to come to Los Angeles to lead a two-day seminar on Democracy and Tradition for 50 or so organizers associated with the Industrial Areas Foundation, the confederation of citizens’ groups founded in 1940 by Saul Alinsky. After the seminar, I immediately headed out with some of the organizers into the communities they were working in. That’s where I collected my stories about Los Angele…

When a Pride March Means Owning the Shame of Racial and Economic Injustice

By Peter Laarman

…, Sullivan served up the old and discredited “model minority” view of Asian-Americans in a way that was both insulting to Asian-Americans and openly contemptuous of African-Americans. The other galling thing about Sullivan (and so many other overprivileged white gays) is his uncritical embrace of heteronormativity: his fervent wish that we all marry and have kids and settle into a “normal” bourgeois lifestyle. This goes to how generally un-woke th…