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HI-LO RELIGION
Bach v. Mel Prepare yourself for heresy: Mel Gibson is the Johann Sebastian Bach of the 21st century. We leave it to others to compare their artistic achievements, but the occasion of a sanctimonious piece by the normally thoughtful Edward Rothstein in Saturday’s... [ Continue reading: ] 
OLD MASTERS
Punctuating the Divine Having spread the news of official reports and officious surveys (see the following two items) and The Passion (see much of the previous week's entries), The Revealer feels free to move on to one of its own small passions --... [ Continue reading: ]
POWER AND GLORY
Into The Darkness Religion writers will be familiar with the Catholic Church's more nuanced attempts to spin the news of its American Troubles, but the rest of us may be surprised at the depth of its cynicism, as revealed here by Debra Mason... [ Continue reading: ]
NUMBER OF DAYS
Minor Quibbles A new BBC poll gives the lie to the oft-repeated notion that the U.S. is the most religious country in the world. Turns out there are at least five countries ahead of us (Nigeria's #1), and that of the ten... [ Continue reading: ] 
PASSIONS
Rising and Falling Can it be true? He is risen and she is fallen -- which is to say, Mel's commercial ressurrection is now a done deal, and the old ways have died... Alright, that's a little confusing. Next thing you know The... [ Continue reading: ] 
ALL PASSION, ALL THE TIME
A Yellow Star for Mel At last -- the big day for what may be the biggest religion story in 2,000 years -- the theatrical release of The Passion. The mainstream press periodically discovers that institutional Christianity is actually pretty good at marketing. And then... [ Continue reading: ]  Everybody's Jew Iowa's press wanted "The Jewish Response" to The Passion. They got me. By Laurel Snyder [ Continue reading: ] 
GRAVEN IMAGES
Prayer Maps Pizza parlors, shipping offices, printing shops, jewelry shops -- temples, all, as revealed by photographer Jaime Permuth's "Manhattan Mincha Map," a virtual exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York. The Mincha is the shortest of the three... [ Continue reading: ]
PURPLE PASSION
Ransom Theory Here's a line you wouldn't expect to find in the pages of a major secular daily: "The Gospel of Mark (10:45) states unequivocally that Jesus died 'as a ransom for many.'" Well, that settles that, doesn't it? Maybe not. The... [ Continue reading: ] 
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Tough Guys Our post will be delayed today; in the meantime, study this line-up.... [ Continue reading: ] 
APOCALYPSE NOW
The Book of LaHaye Buried in a Christian Science Monitor report on apocalyptic Christians and those who preach against their doctrine is this sociological curio: "...one 2002 poll found that more Americans experience the Christian faith through radio, television, or books than by attending... [ Continue reading: ] 
PASSION WATCH
A Grateful Jew As we type, film critic Michael Medved is on CNN explaining the problem with Mel Gibson's Passion. What's the problem? The Jews. CNN brought Medved, a politically conservative, orthodox Jew who never saw a bit of Christian apologetics he didn't... [ Continue reading: ]
GRAVEN IMAGE
Sundance God A new original feature from The Revealer, Patton Dodd's report from the Sundance film festival: "[R]eligious film is what I went to look for, at least partially, and religious film is what I found. I found, in fact, a plurality... [ Continue reading: ] 
HOLY WAR
Enlightening Iraq We suppose it should come as no surprise that The Salt Lake Tribune, using a Combined News Service report, should give bigger play to the latest bit of Paul Bremer's diplomatic theology in Iraq, while The New York Times and... [ Continue reading: ]
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
One Way (Or Another) Republican, Democrat; red state, blue state; "Christian," non-Christian... to this list of fuzzy distinctions beloved by the press, add this new dichotomy: "Great Command" vs. "Great Commission." Writing in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Rev. N. Graham Standish labels the former... [ Continue reading: ] 
SCHISM
Take 'Em To The River The Baptists in Iraq are getting antsy about the U.S. invasion, but not because the crusade isn't going according to plan. Rather, these Baptists, members of one of the world's oldest monotheistic traditions, are waiting for the American occupiers to... [ Continue reading: ] Let Sundance Say “Amen!” Blind Hookers, Floating Monks, and Gay Marxists at the Sundance Film Festival. By Patton Dodd [ Continue reading: ] 
SCRIPTURE
Saturday Psalm "The preaching is Baptist, long and good, about the generations springing up and being cut down like grass. The funeral director, the 'funeralizer,' the Gullah say, has the 'catchers' -- his wife and two male assistants -- stationed before the... [ Continue reading: ] 
CULTURE WAR
Fleshiness Theology "'There’s something very important about the fleshiness of Jesus,'" says Jay Johnson, a theologian at the Pacific School of Religion’s Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry. That “fleshiness” is at the heart of a growing school... [ Continue reading: ] 
HOLY DAYS
Look Away! Snow day! Secret high holy day! Vacation! Technical difficulties. Move along. Nothing to see here. Meantime, entertain yourselves with a wartime prayer by Rick Moody, or amuse yourselves with this secular revelation scheme, imagine a better scheme with Alberto Manguel,... [ Continue reading: ] 
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Get It? Got It. Good. The Revealer welcomes some competition in the religion-press-critique business from GetReligion.org, a new blog edited by Doug LeBlanc and written, for the most part, by Terry Mattingly. The two bring an impressive range of experience to the task -- LeBlanc,... [ Continue reading: ] 
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Prayers Big and Small The-God-of-Small-Things is a blog maintained by someone named Bob. As far as we can tell, it has one entry -- a rebuke to The Revealer. And we thank Bob for it. The Revealer, writes Bob, focuses on "critiquing the big... [ Continue reading: ] 
CHURCH V. STATE
Keep It To Yourself Gregg Easterbrook writes: "I'll tell you what shakes my belief. Not natural selection; not the evil and injustice of the world; not the televangelist hucksters with their flashing 800 numbers; not the constant use of religion to create prejudice and... [ Continue reading: ]
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Without a Peg Faiza Saleh Ambah of The Christian Science Monitor concluded her five-part series on making the hajj yesterday. An hour after the last ritual, she writes, "squeezed in the back of the car returning to Jeddah, everyone around me is sleeping.... [ Continue reading: ] 
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Ooga-Booga Christians Are evangelicals real, or just a story to scare the children of the Upper West Side? 60 Minutes ponders, Wonkette investigates. As it happens, Morley Safer has a religion-smart producer in the person of Diane Simon, but Wonkette is right... [ Continue reading: ]
SCRIPTURE
Ca-razy for Kabbalah David Klinghoffer writes erudite but peculiar books. In one, he recalled his teenage self-circumcision as part of a "conversion" experience (to "real" Judaism). In his more recent effort, The Discovery of God, he writes of “the Master of the Universe... [ Continue reading: ]
SELF-REVEALING
Radio Free Revealer The Revealer is delighted to announce that a radio show featuring two associates of the Center for Religion and Media -- Ann Pellegrini and Janet R. Jakobsen -- is a nominee for a Golden Reel award from the National Federation... [ Continue reading: ] 
GODBEAT
Framing Power Diane Winston cites scholar Richard Flory on the roots of the media's problem with the "r" word: "In the early 20th century, journalism’s secular elites, believing their profession to be the new religion, marginalized the competition. Media scholar Jay Rosen,... [ Continue reading: ]
PASSION-WATCH
Passion Pieces Every day for months now, some pundit, some critic, some tired Godbeat reporter looking for a brush with celebrity, has taken it upon themselves to keep us informed about the most important religion story since... well, has there ever been... [ Continue reading: ] 
WHAT'S MISSING
The Salvation Scoop The New York Times reports today that what The Salvation Army is really all about (the New York division, at least) is, well… salvation. This should come as no surprise, and yet it does, year after year as newspaper reporters... [ Continue reading: ]
HOLY WAR
The "R" Word There’s a valuable comparison to be found by slogging through this week’s New Yorker lead story (print only), by the normally-astute Jon Lee Anderson, on “the Shiite leader who says he can run Iraq” and The New York Times Magazine’s... [ Continue reading: ]
HOLY DAYS
Hajj, Tragic & Trivial The dead: "54 Indonesians, 36 Pakistanis, 13 Egyptians, 11 Turks, 11 Indians, 10 Algerians, 10 Bangladeshis, eight Sudanese, seven Moroccans, five Chinese, four Yemenis, three Sri Lankans, two Afghans, two Somalis, two Syrians, two Saudis, one Burmese, one Omani, one... [ Continue reading: ] |
