Oscar Gets Religion: 7 Categories We’d Like to See
No Bible in this year’s Oscar nominees, and not much in the way of supernatural—but plenty of religion, if you know how to look for it.
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Oscar Watch: Why Spike Jonze’s Her Is Not About Technology
If the critique of our reliance on technology is the obvious takeaway from Her, the less obvious but perhaps more interesting critique seems to be of our culture’s attitude toward romantic love.
Read MoreHis Holiness, Inc.: The Dalai Lama as a Spiritual Mega-Brand
How do we learn to move beyond the commodification of education, of wisdom teachers like the Dalai Lama, of compassion itself? Does the Dalai Lama as mega-brand, as rock star, as spiritual presence, reinforce such commercial constructions or invite their dismantling?
Read MoreHannibal Returns: Is TV’s Favorite Serial Killer the Devil Himself?
Hannibal has “beautiful” crime scenes, but it does not really romanticize suffering. Its version of Hannibal Lecter is a great aesthete, but the beautiful tableaux he creates are polluted, just as the elaborate dinners he prepares for his friends and acquaintances secretly involve the cooked organs of his victims.
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True or False: Less Religion Means Greater Diversity?
Data like these are always engaging, especially with a delightful, refreshing beverage. But this new data set tells little that most religionists didn’t already know—while it might actually skew our understanding.
Read MorePublisher Withdraws History of Hinduism, Amid Protest
The news has hit most of the major papers in India and the United States. Under threat from a small group called Shiksha Bachao Andolan, Penguin Press has withdrawn Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History.
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What Would Ai Weiwei Do? What the Smashing of a Million-Dollar Artwork Has to Teach Us
On Sunday, Dominican-born artist named Maximo Caminero walked into the Pérez Art Museum in Miami and smashed a million-dollar vase. Caminero’s complaint? That local galleries put all their time and effort into international artists of high esteem, and forsake the locals. But here’s the thing: iconoclasm is itself an iconic act.
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Marianne Williamson and Me
We—especially those in academia and the media—have written off religion as divisive, outmoded and irrelevant just as we have trivialized spirituality as frivolous self-indulgence. As a result, our politics are soulless and our candidates’ calls for hope fail to translate into change.
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Pete Seeger Was No Saint
Pete Seeger had mixed feelings about organized religion, but he had strong feelings about organizing. He knew the power of joining people together in song. Just don’t call him a saint.
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[This Valentine’s Day] Less Sex is Good Sex!
A recent article connecting marital equality with a less active sex life set off a firestorm… but is everyone asking the wrong questions?
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