- Advanced search
- Maximize
Beautiful Dreamers: A Documentary Asks “What is God”?
Peter Rodger traveled through twenty-three countries in three years asking the same question to everyone he met, and filming, gorgeously, the results. Turns out the question—“What is God?”—reveals more than a person’s faith.
Compelled by Faith: When Prayer is Not Good For You
Abby Sher collected thumbtacks and paper clips, traced the patterns on her wallpaper, and prayed fervidly to avert disaster. In another era she might have been just another pious eccentric; today she’s a recovering obsessive-compulsive who has renounced (most of) her faith.
American Fever: A Tale of Romance and Pestilence
An online novel about a flu pandemic blurs the boundaries between real “flu-blogging” and the dystopic world of its blogger protagonist. And it exposes the cultural anxiety, both religious and secular, that disease unleashes.
Hitchens Debates Conservative Evangelical: Nothing Happens
A new documentary called <i>Collision</i> follows the collegial debate between new atheist Christopher Hitchens and conservative evangelical Doug Wilson. Spoiler alert: Neither budges and both gloat to the respective choirs they’d been preaching to. Is this the best we can do?
Religion is Not about Belief: Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God
Of all the monotheisms, Christianity has come to depend the most on the idea of belief, or doctrine. But there is a strong countertradition, now submerged, that insists that any time we say we know who God is, or what God wants, we are committing an act of heresy.
Suicide Bombers and the Prozac God: A Review of Dying for Heaven
A new work advancing a radical theory of the motivation behind suicide bombers is almost bizarrely off the mark. Stitching together thought and observation from disparate and often dissonant sources, Georgetown theology professor Ariel Glucklich’s book would be laughable were he not a consultant to the defense community.
Good Hair, Good God! The Divine Politics of African-American Hair
Chris Rock’s new documentary scrutinizes the politics and pathos of black hair care: from the beauty salon to the hair show, and from chemical relaxers to the Indian hair that fuels the hair weave industry.
Evolution and Creation Fight to the Death: What Emerges from the Ashes
You have to look long and hard in the public-square discussion today to find bilateral calls for complementarity and partnership. Yet why should the relations between evolution and creation constitute a zero-sum game?
Jesus Goes to the Dark Carnival: Hell House Gets a Makeover?
Evangelical-sponsored haunted houses known as “Hell Houses” were spooky attractions filled with the ghosts of the culture wars. Now, a softer, gentler version, the “Judgement House” claims to eschew politics, but does it?
A Secret History of Satan
The Devil created by American culture is made in the image of American culture; our beliefs about Satan are part of a theological narrative that has shaped religion, pop culture, and even, in some cases public policy.
Decomposing Humanism: Why Replace Religion?
Humanists are right to think that there is more to life than atheism, but wrong to think that they are the ones to provide it.
Reverend Billy For Mayor: Is He For Real?
Performance artist or man of God? Agitator or politician? The Church of Life After Shopping’s Reverend Billy has a choir and a congregation like a preacher—does he have to be a “real” clergyman to minister to the masses?
Smelling a Secular Funk: Debating the Power of Religion in The Public Sphere
A supergroup of philosophers gathered in New York last week to talk about religion and public life, about the “centrality of the catastrophic” in today’s political context, and about considering the “uncommon” as opposed to “common ground” as a basis for ethics.
Mother (Nature) Will Eat You: Lars von Trier’s Antichrist
Von Trier’s terrifying rumination on the triad of “pain,” “grief,” and “despair” reminds us that, in contrast to the pronouncements of politicians on what is natural and normal, in nature eating one’s young is not too far out of the ordinary—especially in times of stress.
Atheists Gather in Burbank: A Humanist’s Response
An atheist convention, attended by premier nonbelievers Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, inspires some reflections on the virtue of a positive, productive humanism, rather than the anti-theism that dominates the discourse.
Good Without God: The Ethics of Atheism
The nonreligious population is exploding, and somebody has to minister to them. Harvard’s humanist chaplain is on the road, sharing a vision of the common good, hoping his message will resonate with theists and atheists alike.
Escalating Afghanistan: What Did You Do in the Class War, Daddy?
Don’t the clergy have a duty to challenge the march of folly in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
Mormonism’s Black Issues
While many Mormons would like to forget the Church’s history of discrimination against blacks, an Apostle’s recent statements comparing the post-Proposition 8 Mormon backlash to the Civil Rights-era harassment of black voters have brought that painful past back into the spotlight.
The Good Bishop Is Right—The Time for Church Debates on Homosexuality is Past
Retired Episcopal bishop John Selby Spong has declared that he will no longer argue about the status of gay and lesbian people in the church. “There is no middle ground,” the bishop says, “between prejudice and oppression.” So much for “love the sinner, hate the sin.”
Prison as Resurrection
While it’s clear that prisons in this country are a disaster and a scandal, a new book delves into the system’s religious roots and the belief in the spiritual benefits of disciplinary isolation.