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Romney: “A Life Balanced Between Fear and Greed”?

By Joanna Brooks

…he institutional powers that underwrite his success and status. Meanwhile, stories about Romney’s Mormonism run on an entirely different track. But in most of them, the candidate’s faith—still unfamiliar to many American voters—is reported as an ethnicity, with human interest stories highlighting how and why Utah Mormons might make good foot soldiers in western swing states, and nothing-new polls gauging consistent levels of voter antipathy toward…

“I Was a Wild Man”: How to Decode Evangelical Testimony

By Eric C. Miller

…stood for.” The article explains: At 16, unable to obey his parents’ basic rules (like not bringing drugs in the house), he was escorted by police from his home. He dropped out of school and spent the next five years partying on South Beach, trying to pick up girls and getting high. “I was a wild man. I lived a no-holds-barred lifestyle,” Tchividjian said. “If I believed it would bring me maximum pleasure in the moment, I did it, no matter what it…

Greatest Hits of 2015: Religion Stories Our Readers Couldn’t Resist

By Ellie Faustino

…For every time you’ve had to solve for x, a Muslim has duped you”) and FOX News (“Because what else would they talk about?”). #6 Why it (Still) Makes Little Sense to Call ISIS Islamic “Is ISIS Islamic?” was one of 2015’s biggest questions, and all signs point to much more discussion about the topic for some time to come. One can only hope that the continued conversation will be as instructive and nuanced as this response by Haroon Moghul. ISIS doe…

The Secret Life of Mormons: As Told by Prodigal Daughter, Novelist Judith Freeman

By Joanna Brooks

…to the outside and you came back to witness. So often, especially when it comes to the lives of Mormon women, I feel that there is no one but us to witness ourselves—and no one to hear us. You hear us. It has meant stripping away a lot of the stories and half-truths and fearfully-lived constructs that have sort of kept me. Bringing back a more complex self to witness means bringing forth a more mature vision. A woman willing to be generous with he…

Can Art Save Us From Fundamentalism?

By Philip S. Francis

…-evangelicals out of a random crowd from a distance of 20 yards.” But the truth is I found my participants at two very unique field sites. When Art Disrupts Religion: Aesthetic Experience and the Evangelical Mind Philip Salim Francis Oxford University Press March 2017 The first site is the Oregon Extension, a semester study-away program in the southern Oregon Cascades that was founded in 1975 by a small crew of renegade professors from evangelical…

The Children of Bellow and Roth: New Book of Short Fiction Takes On the Male Jewish Experience

By Stephanie Russell-Kraft

…new to Los Angeles, tries to impress a woman at a party by telling her he runs a charity that donates shoes to Palestinians. He comes up with the idea on the fly, but soon finds himself tackling the logistics of collecting, packaging and actually trying to ship dozens of pairs of Uggs to the Gaza Strip. In other stories, protagonists attempt to find their way in Poland, England and France. Haber, who also writes criticism and journalism, is the c…

Making Space For All on Aronofsky’s Ark

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…st means “relating to, taken from, or found in the Bible.” Let’s take that word back. What all of these factions opposing the movie had in common (except, perhaps for Russell Crowe) was the assumption that there is one appropriate way to treat the Bible cinematically—with reverence, ridicule, or not at all, depending on your persuasion. But there’s a lot more than that to be “found in the Bible.” Aronofsky insisted on this artistic freedom all alo…

Texas Textbook Massacre

By Lauri Lebo

…dition, Austin attorney Brian Russell, whom board member Cynthia Dunbar recruited to run for her seat, lost his race to a moderate Republican. Dunbar, who is retiring, is a dominionist and has said public education is evil. Another conservative, Ken Mercer, is facing a serious challenge from a pro-education candidate in the fall election. Next year, just in time for the textbook review, the far-right Christian conservatives may no longer hold a ma…

The Ordinary Jesus: An Excerpt from Christ Actually: The Son of God for the Secular Age

By James Carroll

…te, the most ordinary person bringing Christ once more to life—day by day, word by word, bread by bread, cup by cup. In all of that we see divinity, which, paradoxically, is what makes Jesus one of us. Whatever sort of God Jesus is understood to be, it must be the God who is like humans, not different. If that seems impossible, then what we think of God—and of humans— must change. This is essential to the New Testament and “the very logic of Chris…

Lindsey Graham’s Lying “Eye-ranians”

By Haroon Moghul

…their real goals? And, don’t worry, I checked, but jibber jabber is a real word. Microsoft Word told me, and Microsoft Word is a real American, because Bill Gates is American. Those of you using iPhones, by the way, are probably Iranians and should be detained or deported. Because Steve Jobs was part Syrian, and Syria is part Iranian, which means your iPhone auto-correct is lying to you. Come to think of it, how do we know Lindsey Graham is not ly…