Religion Dispatches
Pulitzer Prize-winner Marilynne Robinson’s third novel in as many decades is packed with the author’s signature themes of struggle, torment, grace, mystery and vulnerability-in other words: Christianity. Indeed, only a Christian of uncommon mettle could write a novel so untainted by the bastardized tropes of Christian culture.
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Peter Manseau’s first novel, Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter, takes on themes of Jewish-Christian enmity, the trials of translation, and the idea of language as a virtual homeland.
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Forget the standard litany of the best-selling books and most popular movies… This year’s list includes comics, rock bands, Battlestar Galactica, “Hava Nagila” sung to the tune of “The Twist,” and “I Am the Walrus” translated into Aramaic.
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A brand new investigation of the Bush family reveals a religious narrative that strays from the official story circulated to supporters and the press. How many conversions did George W. actually have and why? How did a blue-blooded Episcopalian family come to represent the evangelicals of America?
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Brown sophomore Kevin Roose, an Ivy-league heathen, infiltrated the nation’s holiest university and emerged a changed man—not committed to conservative Christianity, but to finding a new language for reconciliation.
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In an excerpt from a new book Dan Fleshler, an American Jewish activist from “the pro-Israel left,” explains the reluctance of Jewish liberals to criticize Israel on the human rights front, even when they share the rest of the world’s objections to Israeli behavior.
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Who put the mega in megachurch? Two new books, one on star evangelicals and one that focuses on African-American televangelists, tell the story—and explain the remarkable influence of celebrity preachers in the religious marketplace.
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What’s a white racist to do these days? A new book examines the history of white nationalism as it has moved from the fringe to the mainstream, describes the religious roots of the movement, and alerts us to its political and social goals.
Read MoreDawkins, Hitchens, Dennett—the new atheists are often out of their depth when it comes to real engagement with religious ideas. And what if the new atheism is not so much about theology as about politics?
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Review: D. Michael Lindsay’s Faith in the Halls of Power and Sean McCloud’s Divine Hierarchies.
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