Religion Dispatches
Something is clearly up (or down) with religious affiliation, but reading that data calls for the art for interpretation, not mathematical modeling. That’s what makes this story far more interesting—and far less funny.
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If the traditional practice of prayer in the context of traditional institutional religions is increasingly meaningless for a significant and growing proportion of American believers and seekers, one wonders what the spiritual or civic value is of attempting to encourage the practice through governmental fiat.
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Was Michael Jackson a supernatural magician or an icon of self-immolation? Both? The physical body is gone, the musical productivity has ceased, the capacity to speak for himself is no more, so now MJ is a wonderfully ambiguous figment of our imagination. Three religion scholars discuss the life, legend, meaning, and myth of one of the world’s most talented, successful, and perhaps tortured performers.
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What would “a tranny hustler,” peeking through a rip in the stocking of space-time, think of our world 40 years later? What will the next Consciousness Revolution look like?
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Though surveys of American religion continue to reveal a rise in the “no religion,” and “unaffiliated” categories the transcendent experience of a Wilco show can lead the way to a more nuanced understanding.
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Analyzing the data from a number of recent religion surveys reveals neither the downfall of religion nor the rise of atheism, as many have concluded.
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Religion surveys have become a battleground for the American religious marketplace—and a magnet for big money.
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Can a survey capture the true nature of the sacred in America? What if the Super Bowl, kinky sex, science, Elvis, Viagra, and the iPhone hold the keys to understanding the sacred and its role in the lives of millions of Americans as they reckon with suffering and ecstasy, reproduction and aging, family and conflict, health and death?
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