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Planned Parenthood ‘Stung’ By Lila Rose
Lila Rose, a 20-year-old UCLA student, is taking on Planned Parenthood with a phony story, video equipment, and support from a host of Christian Right media outlets and organizations.
Purchasing Morality: What Happens When “Buying Local” Itself is Marketed?
Buying locally reminds us that purchasing is a mythical act that cements us to community in some magical way. But what if the very morality of a “local” act is being marketed in its own right? Is it just as moral to help a Palestinian cultural center build community as it is to buy Cisco products whose ads promise the same?
When Medicine and Religion Conflict Around Children: The Case of Daniel Hauser
When Daniel Hauser and his mother, members of new Native American religion the Nemenhah Band, opted out of chemotherapy and fled to Mexico, the media were ready with a religion vs. medicine narrative.
The Gray Lady’s Regard: Ritual and the Wedding Pages
The New York Times Wedding/Celebration pages are pure periodical porn, invoking a cascade of genealogies and an overabundance of fortune. Religion is a whispered aside; and what of love?
The Best and the Brightest of the Catholic Bad Girls
We picketed bishops and Popes, stole their dresses, stood up at the consecration of the Eucharist and said the words out loud. We are the bad girls of Catholic feminism, and we have stood up, over and over again, for women’s freedom.
Christianity v. Christ: An Excerpt From A People’s History of Christianity
Most people know only the Big-C Christianity—Christ, Constantine, Christendom, Calvin, and Christian America—but there is another one, linked to a biblical parable of a wounded man’s rescue by a stranger.
Why I Am Still a Christian
A friend once asked Diana Butler Bass why she was still a Christian. The answer lies in the question of spiritual memory, and of a community that exists through time.
The Pope in My Pocket; We Are All Dilettantes Now
Unlike earlier technologies the ultra-personal iPhone will enable us all to become religious dilettantes privately dabbling with a few taps of the screen: the evangelical teen can recite the rosary, the Catholic can hear prayers in Hebrew, and a Jew can get a mantra. Were the Pontiff aware that the door swung both ways would he still go 2.0?
True Blood: When Marketing Goes For the Jugular
An HBO show about vampires in the rural South depends on “viral marketing” for its buzz. But some people resent the conflation of fact and fiction that this kind of advertising entails. And what of the new religious movement known as the Vampire Community?
Muslims Murder, Christians Don’t: What Went Missing in Analysis of Tiller’s Executioner
While much of the media had no trouble detailing the religious commitment of the Muslim killer of an army recruiter, most profiles painted Scott Roeder as a right-wing, anti-government, anti-abortionist, with a prior arrest history and mental problems. His connection with extremist Christian groups, apparently, is irrelevant.
“Troublemaker” Women Honored, Receive Ivy
What sort of religious institution honors a “run-like-hell Catholic” and the first Asian-American woman Rabbi, among others?
Facebook, Twitter, and the Death of Body Language
Something is missing from the world of instant communicating, microblogging, and social media: the body. There's no face-to-face in Facebook, and no turning back. Are we becoming a network of phantoms?
Sex and the Chosen People: Be Fruitful and Multiply, Etc.
From essays on same-sex segregation in Orthodoxy to the Jewish case against marriage to queer theology, this collection—edited by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg—offers everything you ever wanted to know about Judaism and sexuality but were afraid to ask.
Modern Vampires: Your Neighbors and Spouses
In studying the world of vampires, a young religion scholar is courted by MTV, forced to reckon with subtle energy (“psi”), and confronts the concerns of journalists who recall the disappearance of a colleague at work on a vampire story.
Angels & Demons: America’s Preeminent Pop Theologian Takes on Religion and Science
The prequel to Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, features a “theo-physicist” on a mission to save the Catholic church from itself and perhaps the first action-movie villain driven to his diabolical acts by an addiction to intelligent design theory. Why are Americans so attracted to metaphysical thrills?
Distortions Aside, Clergy Support Gay Rights in Surprising Numbers
Recently released results from a survey of mainline clergy reveals that, when policies are portrayed honestly, the number of clergy who support same-sex marriage, adoption, etc., nearly doubles.
The Rage Behind Outrage
The director of a new documentary talks about Dick Cheney’s daughter, the arrogance of power, and the days when Republicans weren’t anti-gay.
The Defense Department Gospel and America’s Desert Crusade
Bush-era intelligence briefings featured cover pages subtitled with decontextualized and misunderstood scripture in deference to the piety of the administration. Where were the Christian and Jewish moderates, and why didn’t they denounce this extremism?
Glamour, Nostalgia, and Coming of Age: The Prom As Sacred
Whether prom signals triumph or terror, it’s a powerful rite of passage, endowed with an unmistakable aura of the sacred—if you know where to look.
Star Trek: Politics Anti-Matters
The Star Trek franchise was famous for its utopian social vision, going boldly where no popular entertainment had gone before. But the new movie takes us back in time, to an age when political divisions were in stark black and white.