Satanist Monument Shines Light on Christian Privilege
Will the challenge to build “an homage to the historic/literary Satan” at Oklahoma’s capital actually change anything?
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Global LGBT Recap: Mandela and Equality; Elton John Defies Russian Ban; Fake-Healing of AIDS
From India to China to Africa, events this month leave no doubt that the struggle for LGBT rights has gone global.
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Material(ist) Girl: A Philosopher Argues Against the Soul
The neurophilosopher, whose latest book argues that the brain is all we are, discusses yoga, her awkward talk with the Dalai Lama, the soul and what makes her want to tell someone to just “bugger off!”
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American Jews: From Holocaust to New Age Hasidism?
If traditional notions of Judaism and Jewishness are at odds with the contemporary world, one can either change Judaism, or one can change the world. A new book makes a case for the former.
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Why I’m Grateful for 2012, The Rapture, and other Millennial Delusions
The far left and the far right agree on many things: mainstream politics doesn’t matter, hidden forces control our destiny, and, in case you hadn’t noticed, the world is about to end.
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Religion Scholars Convene, Have Nowhere to Sit
’Tis the season to be jolly? Well, not if you attended the annual AAR-SBL national meeting in Chicago’s McCormick Place. If the experience of others was like mine, those of us with some years on the scene came away deeply dissatisfied.
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Pussy Prophets & Nuns on Buses: Will Feminist Politics Get More Holy & Foolish?
It’s simpler to assume that religion and feminism are at odds; that religion is simply the provenance of those who use tools like pro-life politics to fight feminist agendas. It’s much more complicated to think of religion as both resource and adversary in the political struggles that feminists face.
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“Cult” Cinema Comes of Age
While Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master provides the latest (and greatest) vantage point, 2011 saw the release of three solid films on the topic. Why now?
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The Master: “It’s Not the L. Ron Story”
Instead of setting out to debunk Scientology, The Master is driven by Anderson’s genuine curiosity about religious charisma. The writer-director got the idea for the film after reading that postwar America was a particularly fertile environment for new religious movements. This idea brought together a number of other themes and ideas that had been rattling around in his head for some time, catalyzing them into a coherent story.
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Parent, Prophet, Con-Man, Spy: Who Was Rev. Moon?
A few years ago during a college break, when my floor was deserted and peaceful, a middle-aged couple stopped by my office door looking for someone who taught religion. “We’re from the Unification Church,” the man said. I gasped. The Moonies! was my immediate, rather graceless thought. With great excitement, and flashbacks to news reports of mass weddings dancing through my head, I composed myself and invited them in to chat. They seemed pleasantly surprised that I knew what the Unification Church was and, perhaps most of all, that I hadn’t shut the door in their faces.
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