Life as a Game Show: Reading Slumdog Millionaire
While the Oscar-nominated hit portrays very little religion, the underlying framework reveals a distinctly Hindu and Indian perspective.
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Pop-Eye: Meat The Wrestler
How did reviewers from the New York Times to Christianity Today miss the obvious religious references in this Oscar-nominated hit? Did they blink and reach for popcorn at the images of a tattooed Jesus Christ on Randy’s back, or was it more about the myth of modern individualism and body-soul dualism?
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Lincoln and Obama: A Precarious Parallel
Drawing connections between history’s heroes and today’s leaders is one way to tell a political story. But invocations of Obama as Lincoln, as MLK, or as FDR are double-edged.
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Awake from Dreaming: Forecasts and Fears of the Next Four Years
King’s reputation and influence suffered in the four years after his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Even Obama, who rides high on a tide of popularity, is not immune to the vagaries of history.
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MLK SPECIAL: Awake From Dreaming—King to Obama
In a series of short essays, special to Religion Dispatches, religious historians, philosophers, and ethicists celebrate Obama’s place in American history while heeding Dr. King’s continued prophetic challenge for our nation.
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King and Obama—Don’t Get it Twisted
There is a temptation to regard Obama’s inauguration as the end of a forty year “wilderness” experience, but symbolism and symmetry can only take us so far. We, as citizens, are going to need to hold Obama accountable.
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The Untold Story of The Greatest Yiddish Poet in America
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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From Porn to Born-Again: A Remembrance of Bettie Page
The original bad girl, the Che Guevara of sex, Billy Graham’s right-hand woman: Bettie Page was many things to many people, and the story of her life spans American culture from burlesque to Christian Missionary.
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The Shoe Thrower: What Bush Didn’t Understand
A young Iraqi woman, frustrated and in tears, explains to her classmates: “If Iraqi people come at you with shoes, you have lost their hearts and lost the war and God help us all.”
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Inauguration Day: Re-imagining Ourselves
With the election of Barack Obama Americans have proven that we are able to re-imagine something as fundamental as race, as the perception of our bodies in society. But oppression is a complex mechanism, and we cannot allow ourselves to be blinded to its workings.
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