Religion Dispatches
This is a world in which all the dials are turned up to 11—there’s more risk, more conflict, more drama. It’s a world where a few men have over 100 children apiece. One guy has over 250. Drab or dismal it’s not.
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When he’s not writing bestselling books, Vincent Bugliosi is a legendary prosecuting attorney. As such, he is certainly well acquainted with the legal policy of presumption of innocence. His newest book, Divinity of Doubt, a treatise on agnosticism, would have been much better if Bugliosi had taken this principle into account in the context of his arguments for, and against, God.
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There’s a 40-year interval between Stephen Levine’s previous book of poetry and his latest—that’s quite a span. Though his books of prose have found over a million readers, this newest book flies under the radar. Why? One is the still-marginal place of poetry in American culture. For book publishers, the “poetry marketplace” (a kind of oxymoron, since poetry operates largely outside the cash nexus), is largely fueled by writing programs in academia. True, Coleman Barks’ renditions of medieval Sufi poet Rumi captivated a national audience, for a spell. But America’s own living, devotional, mystic poets find a much smaller audience, and slip through the cracks of critical discourse.
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Borrowing generously from old school humanists like Rousseau, and deploying scientific data, Brooks’ new book argues for a more heartfelt humanism. Aren’t there more interesting lessons on human life that we might cull from scientific research?
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“It was what I found in the archives that inspired me to write the book—Craddock’s unpublished book manuscripts on everything from ancient sex worship to contemporary marriage reform. And then there was her journal of mystical experiences—a diary so baffling and intense in its combination of spiritualism and sexuality as to demand attention.”
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Bakker on LGBT inclusion: “My goal is pure acceptance, not just tolerance. I think we’re on the verge of that. People are having conversations. I had someone ask me to listen to this sermon that was a thirty-minute apology, and then a ten-minute why it’s wrong to be gay. So, I’m starting to see these pastors apologizing for what they’re about to say. They seem to know, instinctively, that what they’re doing is wrong.”
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Sadly, there is still a fair amount of ignorance and bigotry toward black non-believers in African American communities due to the stereotype that atheists are immoral, rudderless, and not authentically black. This belief is especially insidious for black women. Mainstream African American culture places a high premium on black female caregiving, piety, and sacrifice. The patriarchal traditions of the Black Church, with their emphasis on charismatic black male leadership and biblical literalism, play a key role in socializing black women to be subservient and self-sacrificing.
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What inspired you to write A House for Hope? What sparked your interest?
As lifelong progressive people of faith, we are tired of religion getting a bad rap because religious fundamentalists and right-wingers lend the power of religion to support unholy causes. We disagree with their…
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A new book of Dr. King’s speeches to labor arrives just as union bashing is enjoying a resurgence.
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“I felt as if I had stumbled into a parallel universe, an alternate history of the Middle Ages that had been perfectly crafted for me: For most of my career, I have worked as a science writer, but my heart had first been captured by medieval sagas. The story of The Scientist Pope—one scholar called him ‘the Bill Gates of the end of the first millennium’—was a story I needed to tell.”
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