|
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
  
POP CULT
Passion Prequel We lied: Tonight's South Park is not the last word on The Passion. Our friend John D. Spalding, author of A Pilgrim's Digress, has just published a major scoop on Beliefnet -- exclusive excerpts from Mel's next movie, a Passion... [ Continue reading: ]
POP CULT
The Passion of South Park UPDATE: See Stewart M. Hoover's April 5th review of South Park's "The Passion of the Jew": "The Dolorous Passion of Cartman." Last word on The Passion: Comedy Central's South Park will feature a very special episode tonight, "The Passion of... [ Continue reading: ]
HOLY WAR
Voodoo Postmortem Revealer associate editor Kathryn Joyce writes: It's more than an un-PC cliche. "'Voodoo is part of Haitian politics,'" voodoo priest, Philippe Castera tells Marina Jimenez, a Toronto Globe and Mail correspondent on assignment in Haiti. "'The National Palace is filled... [ Continue reading: ] 
HOLY WAR
Hearts, Minds, Mortars In a 2,600 word New York Times report by David Rohde on the American "Hunt... for Hearts and Minds" in Afghanistan, the role of religion gets one mention: "As watching Afghan women wailed and recited prayers, one sergeant placed the... [ Continue reading: ] 
GRAVEN IMAGE
Dreamers and Assassins "See the Dreamer in his wheelchair. A poor man. Paralyzed. Blind to this world..." Or was he? Photo-historian Michael Lesy takes a hard look at one of the disturbing images that came out of the Middle East last week in... [ Continue reading: ] The Apocalypse is Always Now But can Left Behind ever come to an end? By Jeff Sharlet [ Continue reading: ]
SCRIPTURE
This is The End In honor of Glorious Appearing, the 12th installment of the mega-best-selling Left Behind series, a true tale of the apocalypse from Revealer editor Jeff Sharlet: The Apocalypse is Always Now (But Don't Tell Joan Didion).... [ Continue reading: ] 
BLOGOS
Sunday at St. Blog's Last Thursday, The Revealer shared a stage at the Yale Divinity School with a panel of journalists talking about "The Belief Beat." Among them were Michael Paulson, a member of the Boston Globe team that won a Pulitzer for its... [ Continue reading: ]
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Sabbath Reading It's just been called to our attention that in our Thursday announcement of our new guide to the God beat, we failed to provide a link to said guide. Apologies. Here it is. Over at Salon, Andrew Greeley wonders if... [ Continue reading: ] 
HOLY WAR
Which Side Are You On? Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard, leaves little room for doubt in his paean to an Iraqi Christian pastor on The Wall Street Journal's opinion page. "'We have a big vision,' Pastor Jule says. It's bold as well.... [ Continue reading: ]
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Shabbat Reads Doc Searls, who describes himself as a Christian, is nonetheless concerned about the radio range wars being waged by low power religious broadcasters seemingly bent on bumping secular non-commercial radio off the air. A terrifically-researched report. Larry David vs. Steven... [ Continue reading: ] 
LIVED RELIGION
Religion is So Last Week If there's a pun in The New York Observer's hed, "Let's Holla for Kaballah," we're missing it. But that's the only thing wrong with this short, sharp piece of what the scholars like to call "lived religion." Oh, excuse us... [ Continue reading: ]
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Retire the "Culture War" Historian Julia Rabig writes in to decode one of journalism's most abused catchphrases, "culture war": Just two examples: Lyle Denniston of The Boston Globe informs us that the “Supreme Court plunges back into the nation’s culture wars” this week as... [ Continue reading: ] 
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Belief Beat The Revealer will be speaking at a conference, "The Belief Beat: Religion & Journalism," at Yale Divinity School tonight. Preparations must be made, so we leave you with a few links to stories you might have missed: A scholarly report... [ Continue reading: ] 
CHURCH V. STATE
Shallow Wisdom The New York Times seems have divided up religion on its op-ed page Crossfire-style. From the left, Nicholas Kristof. From the right, David Brooks. And just like on Crossfire, the left is middle and muddled and the right slot is... [ Continue reading: ] 
SELF-REVEALING
"Killing the Buddha, like the Bible, is a mix of hymn and history, poem and prophesy, story and sermon." -- NPR's Jason DeRose on the new book by Revealer editor Jeff Sharlet and Revealer writer Peter Manseau. Hear the whole... [ Continue reading: ]
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Just Presupposing... San Francisco Chronicle religion writer Don Lattin weighs in on disgraced USA Today journo Jack Kelley: "Kelley — who resigned earlier this year amid allegations that he had fabricated stories and plagiarized quotes — was not a religion writer, but... [ Continue reading: ]
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Freestyling Jimmy Carter is, as ever, diplomatic in his denunciation of the White House's current religion. In The American Prospect, he tells Ayelish McGarvey that this administration is "maybe strongly influenced by ill-advised theologians...." Y'think? But this is no anti-evangelical rant.... [ Continue reading: ]
BLOGOS
First, apologies -- Jewschool informs us that there is a name for the Jewish blogosphere -- jBlog. Second -- jBlog, how about a better name? True, "Mazl Blog" isn't it -- but we have confidence in the community that created... [ Continue reading: ]
BLOGOS
Mazl Blog! Scholars, wonks, and rebbeles; mameles and makhers-in-their-own-minds; such are the denizens of... well, it's hard to say what they're denizens of. Unlike St. Blog's Parish, Jewish bloggers have adopted no general name for the Jewish blogosphere. 'Gogue Blog? Mazl Blog!(?)... [ Continue reading: ] 
HOLY WAR
Christ of the Coup The Revealer's associate editor, Kathryn Joyce, gives The Wall Street Journal's op-ed page poor grades in theology and history: “…The Christ of oppressive Christologies really has two faces. On the one side are all the Christs of the power establishment,... [ Continue reading: ]
MAGIC NUMBERS
Home School Fight Songs "Conservative Christian homeschoolers are big on critical thinking," says one such, "so they wouldn't be led by the nose." Hmm. Maybe getting a little bigger on critical thinking would help this home schooler recognize that "critical thinking" doesn't serve any... [ Continue reading: ]
HOLY WAR
Who Was Yassin? Our press tells us the natives are restless, but it does not tell us why. It reports that Sheik Ahmed Yassin's "blood spattered the walls of surrounding buildings," but it fails to speak of his soul -- or the lack... [ Continue reading: ]
SCANDAL!
Swedenborgian Street Soldier The Catholic Church isn't the only institution gripped by scandal -- the Swedenborgians have been having a hot time of it ever since they let former mob enforcer and true-crime memoirist Eddie MacKenzie keep watch over the collection plate. Once... [ Continue reading: ]
CRITICAL DEVOTION
Don't Mess With Religion Reporters A bit after the fact but better-considered: The great Gary Wills weighs in on The Passion in The New York Review of Books. Regular readers of NYRB will be familiar with Wills' grace, insight, and erudition; newcomers should not be... [ Continue reading: ] 
HOLY WAR
Human Weapon "I break so many taboos when I become a suicide bomber.... I think this nihilism is very new. It’s not the number that I kill, it’s the political statement I make when I kill." -- Filmmaker Ilan Ziv, channeling the... [ Continue reading: ] 
SCRIPTURE
Who Wrote What, When At Eichler's bookstore in Flatbush (that's in Brooklyn, folks), Marc Shapiro's new book has been flying off the shelves; at Eichler's bookstore (unrelated) in Borough Park (Brooklyn, again), it's been banned. "Due to neighborhood complaints we can't keep this book... [ Continue reading: ] 
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Oy vey, St. Blog! St. Blog's Parish, the Catholic blogosphere that's rapidly displacing the Catholic print press, is something of a moveable feast. It's like one of those roaming parties that settles for a brief time in a warehouse or a public park and... [ Continue reading: ]
THAT OLD-TIME ELECTORAL RELIGION
God's Horse God has spoken: "George Bush is going to win in a walk," says the Lord (via mouthpiece Pat Robertson), "... it is going to be a blowout election." To which one imagines Pat griping, "Thanks, but why couldn't you pipe... [ Continue reading: ] 
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
St. Blog's Parish Librarian Rachelle Linner explores the Roman Catholic blogosphere -- "St. Blog's Parish," as it's known -- and finds it wanting. "The clearest way to understand much of the Catholic blog phenomenon is to perceive it as a form of personal... [ Continue reading: ] St. Blog's Parish Even as bricks-and-mortar churches close, Catholicism thrives online in a vast, argumentative, virtual cathedral known as "St. Blog's Parish." Catholic bloggers have to a large extent stolen whatever thunder remained in the Catholic print press. These days, readers interested... [ Continue reading: ] Random Voices Brian Flemming is the man behind Bat Boy: The Musical, and his blog is everything you'd expect from a man with such interests. Which, naturally, include religion, commented on from a smart, liberal perspective. Mostly limited to the news... [ Continue reading: ] The God Beat We almost called The Revealer "God Beat," and thank God we didn't -- the more time we've spent studying religion in the media and media about religion, the more we've come to think that the phrase itself is part... [ Continue reading: ]
HOLY WAR
Spiritual Ammunition Last year, four days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention issued a special call to prayer for Iraq, "the hard eastern edge" of the "unchurched" Middle East. The time had come,... [ Continue reading: ]
8:23 AM
Unitarians On Trial Two Unitarian ministers in upstate New York have become the first clergy members to face criminal charges for performing wedding ceremonies for gay couples. The local D.A. views it as a simple issue of seperating church and state. Gay marriage... [ Continue reading: ] 
SCRIPTURE
"The Ice Storm," the Sermon Sometimes an ice storm is just an ice storm; but sometimes, as in Barbara Nicolosi's exegesis of Ang Lee's film of Rick Moody's novel The Ice Storm, it's a metaphor for everything wrong with the sexual revolution. Nicolosi ties her... [ Continue reading: ]
SALES
Marketing God, Part 3 Here at The Revealer, we're intrigued by the way religions and "spiritualities" appeal, sell, and/or market themselves to followers, or adherents, or, most crassly (most honestly?) "consumers." These questions often arise in critiques of the most culturally aggressive varieties of... [ Continue reading: ]
CONFESSIONS
Good Gnus Nextbook.org, a Jewish literature site, points the way to "The Mother Tongue Between Two Slices of Rye," an essay by novelist Gary Shteyngart on "refu-Jews" and writing new scripture for the new world: "I write my own Torah. It's called... [ Continue reading: ]
LOSHON HORA
Jeebus H. Christ On A Popsicle Stick! The FCC has run Jesus Christ out off South Park, The Comedy Channel's lovable mountain town of foul-mouthed little assholes. Oops! We mean "butt-holes." Broadcasting & Cable reports that "words and phrases as 'goddammit,' 'Jesus Christ,' 'asshole,' and 'butt-plug,' [must... [ Continue reading: ]
HOLY WAR
Iraqi Interventions USA Weekend's cover feature on five soldiers and how their service in Iraq has strengthened their faith is doubleplusgood propaganda, a conflation of faith and fear, of religion and magical thinking. And The Revealer loves it. Iraqis make two appearences... [ Continue reading: ]
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Instant Religion What's worse than a communist? An "ultra-communist," of course. And there's only one cure for that disease: Jesus. AP's Melinda Leitsinger reports from Cambodia on the conversion of "at least a few thousand" former soldiers of the Khmer Rouge. The... [ Continue reading: ]
CULTURE WAR
The Secular Tide "Meet the new face of intolerance," writes The Wall Street Journal editorial page, and guess who the Journal's talking about? The "left" of course. Which left? The "irreligious left," currently threatening the nation with an overwhelming tide of secularism. "Secular... [ Continue reading: ] Human Weapon A conversation with filmmaker Ilan Ziv on suicide bombs. By Kristin Sands & Kathryn Joyce [ Continue reading: ] 
UGLY PASSIONS
A Jew Type Responds Whether or not The Passion is anti-Semitic remains open to debate; but the question of whether it enflames anti-Semitic sentiments can be quickly answered with the following note, posted in response to The Revealer's round-up of Passion coverage, "Arresting Jesus"... [ Continue reading: ] 
CHRONOS & KAIROS
Arresting Jesus Late breaking Passion news from the Jewish Forward: "Emotions in the auditorium became so intense that during the crucifixion scene, some young rowdies bolted out to the street where they assaulted Jewish-looking persons and attacked Jewish stores." The city is... [ Continue reading: ] 
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
High Fretting Over Who You'll Meet in Heaven From Caleb Crain's review of Richard Wightman Fox's Jesus in America in The New York Times a few weeks ago: "Artists of existential anxiety, the Puritans believed that even those who wanted to be saved rarely were. Confidence in salvation... [ Continue reading: ]
GRAVEN IMAGES
After The Passion You've seen The Passion of The Christ so many times now you can sing along to all the songs, and you're tired of your crucifixion nail, and even the drawing-and-quartering scene in Passion: The Prequel (also known as Braveheart) fails... [ Continue reading: ]
CONFESSION
We Knew Not In our haste to bring you Chris Lehmann's powerful new feature on the visual sins of The Passion, The Revealer committed numerous sins of our own. To wit: Zack Snyder, not David Cronenberg, directed the new Dawn of the Dead.... [ Continue reading: ] 
GRAVEN IMAGES
Marketing God, Part II The Revealer's latest original feature, "Picturing The Passion," by Chris Lehmann, is the second installment of his series on the Marketing of God. Lehmann, who last wrote about media-saavy churches in "The Medium is the Messiah," is the deputy editor... [ Continue reading: ]
GRAVEN IMAGES
Who Owns the Passion? Another smart review of The Passion can be found in The Nation, wherein Stuart Klawans weighs Gibson's marketing and moviemaking skills: "Beyond my parochial squeamishness over this movie, I'm concerned at how Gibson forecloses any interpretation. 'It is as it... [ Continue reading: ] Picturing The Passion Killing Christ in the Temple of Scooby-Doo. By Chris Lehmann [ Continue reading: ] 
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
The God-Plus Beat Aha -- now we know why David Kirkpatrick (see "Evangelical Borg") extracted such a one-note article out of the curiousity (to say the least) that is Patrick Henry College. Reducing stories to the bare bones of conservative vs. liberal is... [ Continue reading: ]
WHAT'S MISSING
Evangelical Borg Two features on the growing strength of evangelical Christians reveal the stagnation of the press's understanding of the breadth and depth of evangelical Christianity. An intriguing story by The New York Times' David K. Kirkpatrick on Patrick Henry College, a... [ Continue reading: ]
SELF-REVEALING
The Revealer's Jeff Sharlet will be talking on religion and the way it gets written about at 11 am, eastern time, on "Roundtable," a radio show produced by WAMC in Albany, New York and available online here. A quick glance... [ Continue reading: ] 
SCRIPTURE
You Can Sit On It, You Can Put Your Coffee On It, You Could Make It A Home Entertainment Center -- It's a Religion! The McSweeney's gang has graced us with the publication of William T. Vollman's seven-volume exploration of violence, Rising Up, Rising Down; one is tempted to see it as something of a prank. But Scott McLemee, one of The Revealer's favorite... [ Continue reading: ] 
CHURCH V. STATE
Should politicos confess their faith in public? Buried in The Washington Post's metro section are a series of colorfully-phrased answers from the paper's readers. Edmund C. Flynn thinks too many candidates "act as drug dealers to the faithful," while Sheila... [ Continue reading: ]
LEGAL AFFAIRS
When to Smite? Mass emails are a kind of journalism these days, whether it's a Paul Krugman column or an Ann Coulter broadside e-blasted to a few dozen friends, or a link to "the truth about 9-11" (we didn't say it's always good... [ Continue reading: ] 
CHURCH V. STATE
Jesus Lab Q. What guides Bush's science policies, politics or science? A. Jesus. That is, if we take Bush's testimonies of faith seriously. And why shouldn't the president turn to his best understanding of divine guidance when it comes to issues like... [ Continue reading: ]
HOLY WAR
Exclamation Points! Can you feel it? Shockwave! Today's the big day when teen prayer warriors around the world go to war. Spiritual, that is. Read The Revealer's exclusive report by Elizabeth A. Castelli. Shockwave!The Shockwave Gang... [ Continue reading: ]
CHURCH V. STATE
Faith-Based Bribery President Bush is reminding his base -- and liberal religious activists who could provide swing votes -- of FBI, his faith-based initiative program, which has been inching up in funds and scope throughout his presidency. A small local politics piece... [ Continue reading: ] 
HOLY WAR
Shockwave Teen Prayer Warriors A new original feature on The Revealer: "Shockwave," by Elizabeth A. Castelli. Castelli, a visiting fellow at New York University's Center for Religion and Media, prepares us for tomorrow's "shockwave" of teen prayer, a new annual holiday of sorts designed... [ Continue reading: ]
MAGIC NUMBERS
6 out of 10 Ain't Bad (Except When It Is) We followed our own brand new Revealer press crit page to Tyndall Report, a weekly examination of the network news, and were shocked to discover that apparently, it's all about religion. How do we figure? Six of the top ten... [ Continue reading: ] Shockwave! New media teen prayer warriors plan to conquer the world -- tomorrow. By Elizabeth A. Castelli [ Continue reading: ]
CHURCH V. STATE
Iraqi Hearts & Minds For some reason, the "language pack installation" box pops up when we open this sop for the faithful by James G. Lakely in today's Washington Times. A reminder of the paper's owner, the Rev. Moon, and his native tongue, but... [ Continue reading: ] 
SELF-REVEALING
Ruth, Revealed The Revealer will be practicing a different kind of religion journalism, in person, at the JCC of Manhattan on Thursday, March 4, at 7:30 p.m. Our scripture for the evening will be courtesy of the brilliant novelist and essayist lę... [ Continue reading: ]
CHURCH V. STATE
Unvarnished Love Virginia Postrel has cut through much of the noise of the gay marriage debate by publishing on Dynamist a letter, with pictures, from her newlywed sister, Pam Postrel. Pam's sister Virginia is not even an advocate of the San Francisco... [ Continue reading: ]
HOLY WAR
Holidays in Haiti With John Kerry's hair looming large on the newscape, Haiti has been returned to its "place" in the hierarchy of places that matter, or rather, don't. Left unanswered are serious questions from serious people about whether Bush administration officials Roger... [ Continue reading: ]
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Gay Marriage, This Instant Writing about the fight for -- or against -- gay marriage means writing about religion. Yet most of the current coverage leaves religion out of the picture, not so much ignoring it as racing to keep up with the latest... [ Continue reading: ]
GRAVEN IMAGES
Mel Gibson's Baby Mel Gibson defines evil for Christianity Today's Mark Moring: "taking something that's good and twisting it a little bit." Well, if you say so, Mel. A moment of repentence? Not from this Christian braveheart. Rather, Gibson is responding to Christianity... [ Continue reading: ] 
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Quindlen in the Middle Anna Quindlen's latest Newsweek column is as earnest as ever, but there's a refreshing edge brought on by a letter writer's assumption that Quindlen's liberal politics are a symptom of atheism. "Five of the seven sacraments (they won't give me... [ Continue reading: ] Everyone's a Critic New: The Revealer presents a set of sorta-secular links to mainstream media criticism. Recommendations welcome.... [ Continue reading: ]
STUPID QUESTIONS
God for Prez "Really quick, is God on America's side?" Don't worry -- it's a rhetorical question. At least, it is when The Revealer asks it. But when Elizabeth Bumiller of The New York Times asked it of the candidates in this past... [ Continue reading: ]
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Baptism in Iraq More on the Mandaean water worshippers of Iraq, from Megan K. Stack of The Los Angeles Times: "When they want to find God, Mandaean Sabians wade into the murky waters, face north and pray in the Aramaic tongue they've preserved... [ Continue reading: ]
HOLY WAR
The Voodoo Question Most of the mainstream press has covered the violence in Haiti as if just learning about the country for the first time. Is the violence a civil war? A coup? Nobody can say. How involved is the U.S.? Don't ask... [ Continue reading: ] 
DEADLINE THEOLOGY
Cookie Monsters There's an intriguing round-up of sources at Christianity Today on news out of Texas that the baby-killing Bluebonnet Council of Girl Scouts has been stopped in its tracks. John Pisciotta, an economist at Baylor and director of an unfortunately named... [ Continue reading: ]
THE SPORTING NEWS
God's Strawberry The Revealer wishes there was more good religion/sports coverage. As it is, we have to settle for strange little scraps like this piece of news from ESPN, which reports that Darryl Strawberry is leaving baseball for Jesus -- a career... [ Continue reading: ]
MOSQUE V. STATE
To Be or Not to Be Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council has agreed on the principle of a federalist constitution, reports Al Jazeera. ""Islam will be the official religion of the state and it will be a source ... of legislation," says one official Council spokesman --... [ Continue reading: ] |
