Religious Practices on Trial in Arizona: The Problem With “Experts”
New Age guru James Arthur Ray was arrested in Arizona last week, charged with manslaughter in the deadly miscarriage of a sweat lodge ritual. The news lit up with “expert” analysis, but none of it was from Indian religious leaders or practitioners. What does “expert” mean in this context?
Yearning For A God We Can Live With
Two new books, one offering a vision of interfaith, universal religion, the other a model of a radically transformed Judaism, attempt to wrestle God into the everyday. Against the ascendancy of the so-called New Atheism, both writers argue for a God who transcends “god-management systems” and whose primary claim on us is through our own spiritual longing.
New Age Tragedy in Sedona: Non-Indians in the Sweat Lodge
Wealth creation guru James Arthur Ray is under investigation for criminal negligence in the deaths of two participants in a sweat lodge last week. Is this the inevitable result of outsider appropriation of a sacred ritual, or is the story more complex? Our writer, whose own tradition includes the sweat lodge ceremony, explains the nuances.
Baby Dolls, Sex Dolls, and Ritual Objects
From a man in Japan who has romantic attachment to a pillow, to boom in realistic baby dolls, to a movie about a man who falls deeply in love with a life-size silicon woman, our craze for surrogate objects reveals more than simple fetishism.
What does it mean when a movie series infiltrates our daily lives, and infuses our summer nights with “magic”?
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.
Sacred&Profane: Wilco Worship and the “Churn” in American Religion
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.
Mexico’s War on Saint Death
The Mexican government has demolished dozens of shrines to Santa Muerta, claiming that the worship of this skeletal woman in a white cloak is a “narco-cult.” As resistance grows, so does this new religious movement.
Yes We Can/Si Se Puede: Remembering and Forgetting Cesar Chavez (March 31, 1927—April 23, 1993)
President Obama got his campaign slogan from Cesar Chavez, but on this 16th anniversary of the great labor leader’s death we still have no national holiday to commemorate his legacy.
The Tweets of the Christ
On Good Friday, New York’s Trinity Church reenacted the Passion Play via Twitter, the latest social-networking sensation. Nathan Schneider reports on multitasking his way through the service.
Just Call Me Marie: When Women Become Priests
Marie Bouclin was excommunicated, or rather “self-excommunicated,” as the Catholic church puts it, for becoming a priest. But banishment from the church has not stopped her from living her vocation.
Twitter of Faith: Microblogging the Divine
Religious groups are discovering that Twitter can help to build a portable church, where believers can obey the timeworn injunction to “pray without ceasing”—or is it “tweet without ceasing”?
The Santa Killer: Death Imitating Art
When Bruce Pardo, dressed as Santa Claus, murdered friends and family on Christmas eve he was acting out a tragic bit of ceremonial violence, and borrowing an ironic and horrifying role from film and comics.
Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead
This Halloween, apart from your garden-variety ghouls, skeletons, monsters, witches, vampires and zombies, Americans will be visited by the ghosts of past presidents, the spirits of dead soldiers, and by the souls of those who endured slavery. It is a season of reckoning, both social and political. The election, on the other hand, is about life, today, now. Or is it?
Ghouls, ghosts, goblins and Halloween Hell Houses; Traditional Values Coalition’s shameless Video Voter Guide; More on Sarah Palin’s religious affiliations; Hagee hears a Who-mageddon; No candy, no soda, no birth control!
The Beijing Opening Ceremonies had an odd way of ignoring history, politics, and the West itself...
Sacred&Profane: The Sacred Pelvis
More than Tupac or Marilyn or Di or Kurt or Jimi, the cult of Elvis transcends labels like industry or entertainment; it is worthy of church, but the spirit of Elvis cannot be institutionalized...
Olympic Ritual and Religion, Hosted by a Religion-less State
When the modern Olympic Games were revived they were imbued with a religious and ritualistic significance. How that will be handled by Communist China remains to be seen.
Straightening Up Cardinal Newman
Cardinal John Henry Newman, England's most famous convert to Roman Catholicism, is on his way to sainthood. Is this why the Vatican is preparing to move his grave and separate him from the friend he requested to be buried with?
Bonnaroo 3: With a Buzz in Our Ears
In which our intrepid writers let the ethereal sounds of Sigur Ros ripple and echo through them, and learn to speak “hopelandic.”
Cremation is increasingly acceptable to Jews but is it as ecologically friendly as we’re led to believe?
A surgeon explains how traditional Navajo healing modalities can inform medical practice.
This Haitian religion, caricatured by Hollywood, maligned as “Satanic,” and dismissed as “primitive,” is getting a facelift.
Sacred&Profane: The “Cult” of Oprah Inflames Religious Right
The Religious Right’s wildly popular video attack on Oprah’s “dangerous” teachings may not be as far off base as it first appears.
A Brief History of Olympic Flames
The Olympic Flame, a potent symbol with religious connotations, has historically been the focus of social protest.