Search for "Martin Luther King Jr."

Picasso’s Sacred Monster Eats Chicago: A Mystery Solved?

By Jeremy Biles

…Oedipus and the Sphinx is a classic of symbolist art, depicting the Theban king assailed by a feminine monster at once seductive and deadly. The surrealists, including Picasso, were known for engaging mythic imagery, and were particularly intrigued by composite beasts such as the sphinx. Argentine painter Leonor Fini created numerous variations on the Greek sphinx, while Salvador Dalí concocted a veritable menagerie of Egyptian and Greek sphinxes,…

Will The Bible Miniseries Correct Biblical Illiteracy?

By Sarah Posner

…the battle of Jericho, the portrayal of most characters by white actors, except for Samson, depicted as a mandingo figure, in Gafney’s view, and rape and polygamy in the story of King David. The third of ten episodes airs tonight on the History Channel. UPDATE: Gafney’s post analyzing the third episode is here….

Mauled by an Angel: Why Do Americans Need “God’s Secret Agents”?

By W. Scott Poole

…ives the archangel a mafioso swagger; God’s messenger as portrayed by “the King of New York.” And what sparks this heavenly turf war? Gabriel, it turns out, hates us. Humans are “talking monkeys” who don’t deserve to be in heaven. Worse, God doesn’t talk to him anymore (possibly because his hobby appears to be murdering humans and reanimating them as his soulless slaves). Legion (2010), by first time director Scott Stewart, cribs a bit from The Pr…

Same-Sex Marriage: Good for Marriage, Good for the Pocketbook

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…mmunity using worn arguments and religious justifications. What’s most shocking about Jackson’s letter isn’t his well-worn rhetoric, it’s this one line at the very beginning: “We believe that the central domestic problem we face is the disintegration of marriage.” Really? The “central domestic problem” facing this country is the “disintegration of marriage”? If that’s what Jackson believes, then he’s got some mighty thick blinders on. He might wan…

Kirk Cameron’s Monumental Reveals Subtle Influence of Christian Reconstructionism

By Julie Ingersoll

…views can’t simply be dismissed.) Clearly, Kirk Cameron isn’t secretly working toward the re-establishment of biblical slavery or the death penalty for homosexuality (though he did make an unfortunate choice of words when talking about the controversy over his recent anti-gay comments, suggesting he had been “stoned” by the media). So why does it even matter whether or not Cameron has been influenced by Christian Reconstructionism? It matters be…

From Organized Religion to Organizing Religion: Brian D. McLaren Wants Christians to Be Better

By Peter Laarman

…trying to provide some of the needed structure. Competing for funding … working in competitive and fragmented silos … or shockingly apathetic and complacent … that pretty much defines the status quo. That’s why I and so many others are working to build a new reality, a new possibility. It’s not easy; otherwise, it would have happened already. But I do believe it’s possible. I made the point in my review that some of the theological insights you br…

Glenn Beck’s Salvation Army

By Peter Montgomery

…“you must fall to your knees and you must reconnect with God. He is not asking you. He is commanding us as a people to get behind Him. He will right the wrongs. We will have to pay a price because we lived outside of His laws. We will have to pay a price, but every day we don’t get behind Him, the price gets bigger. It gets harder. Get behind Him. He will be our shield because these people are not enemies of ours. They are enemies of Him. They ar…

A Pair of Courts Issue Revolutionary Rulings on LGBT Equality: One Scathing, One Beautiful

By Sunnivie Brydum

…laintiffs whose struggle for justice has been delayed and rebuffed; as Dr. King reminded us, however, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” G.G.’s journey is delayed but not finished. G.G.’s case is about much more than bathrooms. It’s about a boy asking his school to treat him just like any other boy. It’s about protecting the rights of transgender people in public spaces and not forcing them to exist on the margin…