Religion Dispatches
In the eighth and final installation of Mark Dery’s “critical novella” about a ’70s Jesus Freak who switches saviors (from J.C. to Ziggy), the author connects the dots between his devout Bowiephilia and what theologians call kenosis—the emptying out of the self to make room for the indwelling spirit of god.
Read More
Why did the chairman of golf’s most prestigious tournament have the temerity to violate the Great Public Ritual of Celebrity Disgrace by publicly castigating Tiger Woods just as he was headed for redemption? Did Woods’ socially-proscribed moral transgressions simply provide Golf’s Old Guard a perfect opportunity to reassert who should be in and who should be out?
Read MoreA welcome, albeit late condemnation of the bill now languishing in the Ugandan parliament.
Read MoreIn the latest diavlog in RD‘s collaboration with Bloggingheads.tv, Anthea Butler and Michelle Goldberg discuss the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, Christian militias, the GOP’s spiral of extremism, and more.
Read More
In studying the world of vampires, a young religion scholar is courted by MTV, forced to reckon with subtle energy (“psi”), and confronts the concerns of journalists who recall the disappearance of a colleague at work on a vampire story.
Read More
Doonesbury creator Gary Trudeau picks up an unfortunate thread in his latest cartoon, in which a character ponders the superiority of Jesus to the wrathful OT deity, and inferences are made regarding moneychangers and usury.
Read More
A veteran analyst of right-wing militancy notices a creeping maturity in the media’s ability to talk about the religious elements of terrorism—even when it’s Christian.
Read More
In this fifth installment of Mark Dery’s cultural critique-cum-“nonfiction novella” about a born-again teen’s transcendent encounter with Ziggy Stardust in the 1970s, our hero Accepts Bowie as His Personal Savior. Delving deep into Bowie’s religious cosmology, we encounter Tibetan Buddhism, Nietzchean existentialism, Crowleyite magick, dimestore occultism, Kabbalistic mysticism, and — mirabile dictu! — Christianity.
Read More
In this sixth installment of Mark Dery’s cultural critique-cum-“nonfiction novella” about a born-again teen’s encounter with Ziggy Stardust, Dery traces the religious geneaology of Bowie’s spacefaring genderbender through Jesus to Orpheus (by way of Plato) and, ultimately, to Bacchus/Dionysus.
Read More
In this, Part 7 of Mark Dery’s cultural critique-cum-“nonfiction novella” about a teenage Jesus Freak’s life-changing encounter with Ziggy Stardust, Dery considers the ancient, orgiastic, sometimes cannibalistic roots of all rock fandom—and, for that matter, Christianity.
Read More