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   Conservative Judaism Reconsiders Policy on Gays The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, which considers religious law for the Conservative branch of American Judaism, will meet next week to reconsider its 1992 decree opposing the blessing of same-sex couples and the ordination of open homosexuals as... [ Continue reading: ] Antiabortion Order The Missionaries of the Gospel of Life, a new, explicitly political, order of Catholic priests which will dedicate itself exclusively to fighting abortion and euthanasia, has been formed this week with the blessing of the Vatican. The male-only order will... [ Continue reading: ] This Is the Fray Cynthia Burton of the Philadelphia Inquirer surveys the market value of religiosity for New Jersey candidates running at the state and local level. The story succeeds more for giving a broad overview than any in-depth analysis, but it's admirable in... [ Continue reading: ] Love May Tear You Apart; Stick with Hate The New York Times catches up with the veritable peace train that is the interfaith movement to oppose an international gay pride parade and festival, "Love Without Borders," from occurring in Jerusalem this August, and reports that now Islam's on... [ Continue reading: ]
"Jonathan Mahler", Jonathan Mahler, megachurch, megachurches, Christian Right, radiant church, megachurch new york times, "Franklin Graham", "James Dobson", "Ted Haggard", "Jeff Sharlet", Jeff Sharlet, Sharlet
The Evangelicals Are All Right (Aren't They?) By Jeff Sharlet: The New York Times has declared itself on the subject of megachurches -- and thus, in the paper's logic, evangelicaldom -- with an 8,107 word story in its Easter Sunday edition of the magazine, "The Soul of a New Exurb," by contributing editor Jonathan Mahler. I read it with terrible dismay, not because it's bad, but because it's pretty good, and, as it happens, on Good Friday I put to bed a 10,000-plus word story on a megachurch -- New Life, in Colorado Springs -- and exurbanism for Harper's magazine. [ Continue reading: ]  Republican Roots As House Republicans discuss an upcoming vote on a proposal that would ease restrictions on federal funding for stem-cell research, former Republican senator, Episcopal minister, and recently resigned U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John C. Danforth, weighs in on... [ Continue reading: ] The Liberty Legal Institute Economy Boost The Dallas Morning News' Kim Breen reviews the Plano school case -- the handful of Christian-message candy canes at an elementary school Christmas party that became a debate over religion in public schools that became a lawsuit brought by Plano's... [ Continue reading: ] Showdown: Disaster Epic Meets Bible Epic Kate Hawley: By now, most of us have been sufficiently primed for the coming of Revelations, NBC’s New Testament-inspired miniseries opening April 13. But when the trailer came on last night as I was (yes, I’ll admit it) watching an episode of Vegas, I gasped and nearly dropped my Nutella. There was something about Bill Pullman and Natascha McElhone debating the end-times amidst shots of thunder-filled skies that struck me as obscene. [ Continue reading: ] Church V. BBC The BBC has aggravated (some) religious sensibilities again, and sparked a minor Church of England scuffle, with its Christmas day airing of an episode of the popular sitcom The Vicar of Dibley, which featured a chocolate baby Jesus and the... [ Continue reading: ] Same Old Disdain, Great New Flavor We've been arguing with Caleb Stegall, an editor of our favorite small-o orthodox Christian website that likes to bash us, about how to write these little blurbs below the fold of The Revealer. Caleb charges us with using the cover... [ Continue reading: ]  Stang Suspect Held A Brazilian farmer suspected of killing Dorothy Stang has turned himself in to the police, though he denies involvement in the murder.... [ Continue reading: ] Hunter S. Thompson Is Not Dead In a story that sounds like a schizophrenic explosion of multiple American dreams, a West Virginia man dressed as a combination frontiersman/Indian/army commando was arrested outside of St. Louis with a carload of guns and ammunition, various drugs and a... [ Continue reading: ] Party Like It's 2006 End-Times Update (U.S. only): After analyzing and interpreting various Koranic verses, Palestinian scholar Ziad Silwadi has published a study currently circulating in many Muslim countries that claims the United States will "cease to exist" sometime in 2007, when Allah will... [ Continue reading: ] Do-Good Journalism: 100% Conclusion-Free Five months after the news fad of God Gap articles that contrasted blue- and red-state households, and all the earnest, post-election attempts to understand evangelical America, The Boston Globe's Brian MacQuarrie has found a Christian Family from the Heartland to... [ Continue reading: ] Eye for an Eye Focus on the Family gears up for James Dobson's appearance on MSNBC's Scarborough Country tonight, where the good doctor will discuss Terri Schiavo and "judicial activism," with a statement in today's New York Times that disparages the entire judicial branch... [ Continue reading: ]  Spring Break Eternal What does Campus Crusader Becca Johnson hear on the beach in Florida this spring break? Not waves or partying or even the solicitations of Girls Gone Wild filmcrews; Johnson hears the yearning of sunbathers to listen to the Good News.... [ Continue reading: ] Status Quo'd by The Da Vinci Code In spirit of the holiday, Maureen Dowd tries to find common ground between Da Vinci author Dan Brown and Da Vinci judge Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who recently led the Vatican's counter-attack, declaring Brown's book full of lies and a throwback... [ Continue reading: ] Columbia Wars New York Magazine's Jennifer Senior speaks to WNYC's Brian Lehrer on the controversy at Columbia University's Middle East Studies Department. Listen now.... [ Continue reading: ] It's No Piss-Christ A Moscow art exhibit entitled "Beware of Religion" has been deemed "insulting" and "overtly provocative" by a district court, which today fined two museum staff members for "actions tantamount to fanning ethnic and religious strife." In January, the exhibit led... [ Continue reading: ]  Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest There is no shortage of foolish rhetoric clamoring for the attention of poor Terri Schiavo, from both the self-declared "culture of life" and the smeared "culture of death." The mystery here is why the press is so unable, or unwilling,... [ Continue reading: ] Easter Shroud Debunking An Idaho English teacher, Nathan Wilson, has offered a theory on how the Shroud of Turin -- Jesus' supposed burial cloth -- was faked, by using of paint, glass and linen to create a false "photo negative" image. Wilson, an... [ Continue reading: ] Conception Parties The satirical website, The Swift Report, investigates another way to celebrate Easter weekend and "liven up the culture of life": Christian "conception parties," whereing married couples gather on March 25 to celebrate and "reenact" the immaculate impregnation of the Virgin... [ Continue reading: ] Peace Radio This Sunday, Israeli and Palestinian radio stations are scheduled to simultaneously play versions of a Mid-East peace song, "In My Heart," written by a duo of peace activists, Israeli David Broza and Palestinian Wisam Murad. The Palestinian station will broadcast... [ Continue reading: ] Scottish Episcopal Church Three weeks after bishops in the Scottish Episcopal Church declared that practicing homosexuals were eligible for ordination, the news agencies have caught up, today triggering a response from the minority evangelical wing of the Church, which has vowed to turn... [ Continue reading: ]  Ban Gay Marriage, Get to Beat Your Girlfriend Ohio's gay marriage ban doesn't just protect the sanctity of good Christian marriage the way God intended it; it's also got the added perk of getting domestic violence abusers off the hook, as in the case of Frederick Burk, a... [ Continue reading: ] God Racketeers The Ten Commandments and PBS, abstinence education and Revelations, the Justice Department's "religious rights" unit and Volcanoes of the Deep Sea, Ashley Smith, Dennis Rader, Terry Ratzman and, of course, Terri: Frank Rich is pissed about it all. But beyond... [ Continue reading: ] The Music is Not the Message Brendan Boyle: When a drummer stops the set, something has usually gone wrong. When Mark Nicks, drummer of Nashville three-piece Cool Hand Luke, brings the music to a halt, something is going entirely right. In the days leading up to the 2003 Cornerstone Music Festival in Bushnell, Illinois, Nicks had a minor revelation and now onstage, half hidden behind two snares and a high-hat, he wants to confess it. The crowd, teenaged and feverish, quiets as he begins. "There’s so much about this festival, this music scene, that isn’t about Jesus and it's breakin' his heart. We walk around with our friends...and Jesus' name isn’t even mentioned. And it’s breakin' my heart too." [ Continue reading: ]  Old News Kate Hawley: News flash: Christian holidays have pagan roots. A wide-eyed report from Agence-France Presse tells us it "seems odd" that Easter, a Christian holiday, can be traced back to a spring ritual named for the Anglo-Saxon goddess of fertility. Numerous variations on this story abound. Another story in The St. Petersburg Times this week introduces us to Purim, in a headline calling it "an untraditional tradition." It’s a fascinating turn of phrase, begging the question, untraditional to whom? Not to those who have celebrated it for thousands of years... [ Continue reading: ] The Best Party You Missed Last Year Singapore officials have refused to allow a local gay Christian support group to hold a planned AIDS awareness concert because the headline act is a gay Christian duo from San Francisco, and the officials argue that their presence would promote... [ Continue reading: ] 21st Century Ship Now that racism, unequal opportunity, inner city poverty, voter disenfranchisement, police profiling, inequities in the justice system and in the sentencing of convicted criminals are all taken care of, black ministers, lobbyists and conservative activists are steering the Black Vote... [ Continue reading: ] Rabbis for Human Rights Amid the dozens of stories about Israeli rabbis encouraging "forcible resistance" to the evacuation of Jewish settlements, comes the story of Arik Ascherman, an American-born rabbi living in Jerusalem who has been convicted of interfering with police duties for trying... [ Continue reading: ] Biblical Smells Christian theme-park watch: Yet another Disney-meets-your-holy-book adventure park/leisure resort is set to open, this time in Yorkshire, England under the name Ark Alive. AA will feature a life-size Noah's Ark, David and Goliath re-enactments, a Garden of Eden bio-dome, Christian... [ Continue reading: ]  Big 'R' Redemption Kate Hawley: In the Metro section of Tuesday's New York Times, David Gonzales writes artfully about "urban gleaner" Charles Kelly, who for 21 years has made his living redeeming cans and bottles for a five cent deposit. But, as Gonzales points out, Kelly isn’t just redeeming the detritus of our consumer society for money. According to his pastor, Rev. Earl Kooperkamp, he’s part of a "moral economy of redemption." Implicit in the story is a powerful idea: that our work, however humble, can have moral dimensions. And it’s rare to see journalism about religion interwoven with the fabric of everyday life. Still, what Gonzales is doing is not new. He is, as the Times takes care to remind us especially often at holiday time, remembering the neediest, in the Protestant progressive tradition of the press. [ Continue reading: ] Because It Just Doesn't Fit With British Reserve As abortion politics comes of age in England -- that is, becomes a touchstone for outraged single-issue voters, and a quick n' easy way for candidates to align themselves with the side of Family and Morality -- Tony Blair has... [ Continue reading: ] A Heretic's Zoology Everyone's a blasphemer these days, including Rabbi Nosson Slifkin, an ultra-Orthodox Israeli scholar and Talmudic zoologist who has written nine books attempting to reconcile Jewish Scripture with natural science. Slifkin, The New York Times reports, isn't trying to debunk much,... [ Continue reading: ] God of Small Things Revealer contributor and friend Bob Smietana has suspended his blog, God of Small Things, for the time being. Bob's writing there, here and elsewhere, has been consistently thoughtful, measured and compassionate -- in the true sense of the word, not... [ Continue reading: ] Also Starring... Poor Scott McConnell picked the wrong month to offer himself as a conservative Christian cause célèbre. But even though the martyrdom role for March has already been filled, McConnell's an ambitious understudy, declaring himself the evangelical victim of Blue State... [ Continue reading: ] God Gene Redux A study on the religiousness of identical and non-identical twins at Minnesota University adds a few more numbers to the debate over the import of VMAT2, a DNA strand popularly dubbed the "God Gene," finding that identical twins reported similar... [ Continue reading: ] Yet Another Reason to Find God Finding Christ won't just get you into Australia, it may get you off death row. Or at least it's fair-game for juries to consider a convict's religious conversion when deciding whether or not to deliver a death sentence. Today the... [ Continue reading: ] Force Assist Scientology Christmas cards and on-the-clock spiritual massage: the things Tom Cruise's co-workers have to put up with. Well, so it's not exactly the purpose-driven bank branch, but the apparent similarities between the proselytizing of such evangelical businesses and Cruise's efforts... [ Continue reading: ]  Special Ops Jesus No More! Steve Peacock, of the Greater Binghamton Progressive Media Center, reports that the U.S. Army Special Operations Command has cancelled its order for 10,000 modified Bibles rather than comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request he filed last fall.... [ Continue reading: ] Jesus Points Joyce: When I was in South Africa several years ago, I attended a seminar for citizens hoping to expatriate themselves to Australia. It was a shady business, since many people -- especially many whites -- wanted in to Australia, and... [ Continue reading: ] Imax Says Amen Let Intelligent Design proponents dally around with talk of "open debate" and critical assessment of multiple theories about the origins and mechanics of the world. Members of a focus group in Fort Worth, Texas, previewing an Imax documentary on Volcanoes... [ Continue reading: ] Yours In Christ, Condi The Condoleezza Rice '08 contingent shouldn't lose all hope after the secretary of state's insistence last week that she wouldn't seek the presidency; Rice has again proved her facility with bold, empty gestures during yesterday's visit to China, when she... [ Continue reading: ] In God's Country Why won't you visit Estes Park, Colorado? Because of the town's recall election tomorrow for an agnostic town trustee, David Habecker, who refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance because it violates his religious convictions, or because the godless man... [ Continue reading: ] RLUIPA Oral arguments for a case concerning Ohio prisoners and the constitutionality of the 2000 federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act will begin at the Supreme Court this morning. The suit, Cutter v. Wilkinson, was filed by a group... [ Continue reading: ]  The Original Plan Was To Go With A "Sea of Love" Theme, But Another School Had Already Claimed It "GOP leaders in both houses describe [the Terry Schiavo] case as having to do with the 'culture of life' theme expected to be central in the 2006 congressional races." -- Gail Russell Chaddock in The Christian Science Monitor. What's interesting... [ Continue reading: ] Certainly, He Said "Despite, or perhaps because of, the lack of historical fact about his motivations, Judas remains a fascination. 'Certain traditions form around certain figures that appear in the Gospels,'" says Adam Becker, assistant professor of religious studies at New York University.... [ Continue reading: ] 
heathen, kenneth minogue, "kenneth minogue", "new criterion", new criterion, "jay rosen", jay rosen, anti-media, "joan didion", "janet malcolm", janet malcolm,
The Media Do Suck (Why The Heathen Rage) By Jeff Sharlet: For the last ten years I’ve been writing stories the reporting of which often began with a subject telling me why he or she hates “the media,” a phrase I surround with scare quotes not to suggest that it doesn’t really exist, but that “the media” so widely reviled is a hydra with no body; there is no common denominator to the hatred with which it is denounced. [ Continue reading: ]  50 M.P.H. Doubt In the wake of the shootings at the Living Church of God in Brookfield, Wisconsin, a "distraught" woman decided that the deaths proved that God doesn't exist and she should therefore drive her car into the side of St. Joseph's... [ Continue reading: ] Plush Elder Gods On this week's 68th anniversary of the death of horror writer and myth-maker, H.P. Lovecraft, the Library of America has re-released his writings; Tim Clodfelter at Relish surveys the wealth of horror and sci-fi movies, comic books and video... [ Continue reading: ] Holy Warring in Gaza The efforts of Jewish fundamentalists to thwart disengagement plans in Israeli settlements continue to get biblical, this week with a plot to occupy the disputed holy site of Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa mosque, plus a good, old-fashioned stoning. The plotting, captured on... [ Continue reading: ]
Killing the Buddha, Steve Almond, "Steve Almond", Peter Manseau, Jeff Sharlet, Buddha, Kill Buddha, Bia Lowe, Paul W. Morris, Bob Jones, Hutch Owens, Pauline Kael, Samuel Heilman, Patton Dodd, Laurel Snyder, Jeremy Brothers, Irina Reyn
Buddha Born Again, Killed KillingTheBuddha.com -- "cheaper than church," "paved with good intentions," "god for the godless" -- lives. When I took the job of running The Revealer two years ago, I swore to my fellow Buddha killers that I wouldn't abandon the webmagazine we started in the fall of 2000. The Revealer, I hoped, would be a worthy, if wonkier, cousin of Killing the Buddha... [ Continue reading: ]  Imagine An international, interfaith team of U.S. evangelicals and ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews have come together to fight the upcoming World Pride Parade from taking place in Jerusalem this August, claiming that the gay parade would offend the religious sensibilities of local... [ Continue reading: ] Auto-Deistic Victimhood? Can a Satanist be the victim of a hate crime? The Village Voice's Kristen Lombardi investigates the case of Daniel Romano, a 20-year old Satanist from Queens who was beaten last January by two Christian acquaintances (both of whom claim... [ Continue reading: ] Pancakes, The Purpose Driven Life, and the Perfect Story Evangelical media has been abuzz with the story of Elizabeth Ashley Smith, the hostage of the Atlanta courthouse killer who convinced her captor to give himself up by reading to him from Rick Warren's best-selling spiritual self-help manual, The Purpose... [ Continue reading: ] Medicine Men A federal court has approved a settlement between Nebraska Native American inmates and prison officials allowing the inmates to use medicine men and a tocacco substitute during religious ceremonies.... [ Continue reading: ]  Disney On the Ganges Though Disney may have sold its nostalgic utopia, the town of Celebration, last year, the will to create scale Edens and religious theme parks can't be kept down, to witness recent examples such as The Holyland Experience, The Creation Museum,... [ Continue reading: ] Da Vinci Cardinal A cottage industry in books debunking Dan Brown isn't enough: now the author of the bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, gets his own Vatican-appointed cardinal, the Archbishop of Genoa, Tarcisio Bertone, who was clocked into work yesterday with an interview... [ Continue reading: ] NYT: "Seen By Some As A Cult" Wisconsin police are focussing on the role of religion in Terry Ratzmann's murderous attack on his own church, reports The New York Times. Let's hope the police are doing a better job than the Times. "The Living Church of God,"... [ Continue reading: ]  St. Patrick's Pre-Purim Evangelical Indie Rock Party Wedding Warm-Up (A-weema-wah) Last night I went to church at the Journey, an evangelical, nondenominational, congregation of actors and singers and people who want to know actors and singers. I was reporting a story about a couple of its members, but I was fascinated by the music: imitation indie rock, contemporary Christian music... but it was good! There were these interludes that reminded me of "Under the Milky Way," the Psychedelic Furs version, and there was a fine bass player that made the lyrics about being broken and healed and all that actually seem related to being broken and healed and all that. I was impressed; until I went downstairs, to the Hammerstein Ballroom, where, I was told, the hasidic Frank Sinatra was playing a special pre-Purim concert. I caught only the opening act -- but -- my God -- it rocked. Not faux-indie-rock-rocked; rather, only as a singer with a cantor's control and a big brass band behind him can. It was most decidely not "relevant," the buzzword in evangelicaldom these days, but this is how good it was: the guy sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh)," af yidish, and it was so good I almost cried and definitely would have danced if the assembled hasidim hadn't already been eyeing me like maybe I was a lobster roll.... [ Continue reading: ] Like, To Death Everybody must get an updated Old Testament. Or at least British kids have to, according to Hodder & Stoughton, publishers of Today's New International Version Bible, which has just issued a revised version clarifying that biblical sinners got executed, not... [ Continue reading: ] Oil God Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton waxes poetic on the op-ed page of The NYTimes today, describing in rapturous prose the miracles of American ingenuity that will allow us to suck oil from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge without... [ Continue reading: ] Wedge O' Truth There was time enough last fall to grow familiar with the phenomenon of campaign aides "frankly" discussing political strategy with the media -- divulging upcoming talking points, spin tactics to be employed, the agenda underlying the candidate's rhetoric -- before... [ Continue reading: ] Presidential Prayer Team While hosting Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez insisted that the United States government was attempting to assasinate him and voiced a public prayer that God "'save us'" from President Bush, who, according to Chavez is obsessed with... [ Continue reading: ]  I'm Too Sexy For My Celibacy Chastity is all the rage: NYT's Alex Williams falls all over chastity crusader Lauren F. Winner and her new book, Real Sex, in the paper's Fashion & Style section. "She wears retro cat's-eye glasses, has four tattoos, weaves references to... [ Continue reading: ]
"Living Church of God" "Terry Ratzmann" Terry Ratzmann, Terry Ratzman, wisconsin,
Living Church of God A few years ago, a colleague and I reported a story about an attack on a church in Henderson, North Carolina. In that case, the shooter used blanks; everyone got a fright, but no one was hurt. The members of this little church did absolutely nothing to merit such terror. But when we started spending time at the church, we began to see how a mentally disabled person could be easily... confused. This was a non-denominational pentecostal church with a persistent focus on apocalypse; indeed, the only artwork in the church were two identical paintings of a modern city being "raptured," with great violence. Church members viewed their attacker as demonically possessed. I thought about that little church as I read about the Living Church of God in Brookfield, Wisconsin, where seven congregants were killed on Saturday by one of its own members, who then took his own life. The killer, described as an exceptionally gentle man, was no doubt in some kind of psychotic state. The church's beliefs have nothing to do with this awful event. To suggest otherwise would be the ugliest of secular slurs on religious belief. Or would it? [ Continue reading: ]  Milk "Mary, an unstable mystic, masturbates with holy ardor, turning a prayer -- 'Come, Lord Jesus, have mercy on me' -- into a lascivious incantation. Walter, a left-wing Episcopal priest who has been demoted to an outer-borough church for coming on to a teenager at Manhattan's Church of the Heavenly Rest, still desires boys; he spends his nights trolling gay bars and his days visiting Web sites 'for theologically minded adherents of S-and-M.'" Virginia Heffernan in The NYTimes on Darcey Steinke's new novel, Milk, "a furtive little book, a kinky Christian fable about three Brooklyn outcasts obsessed with God and sex." [ Continue reading: ]  Shirts & Skins Kate Hawley: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled on Tuesday that the AmeriCorps gang can teach in religious schools. But if they want to teach anything religious, they have to strip their AmeriCorps uniforms. One can only imagine a series of theatrical quick changes: AmeriCorps polo shirt on for math class, but quick, whip it off in time for prayer assembly. On for biology, off for catechism. On for history, off for the Bible as literature. Wait. That one’s complicated. Maybe they could wear their AmeriCorps shirt only half on. Just around the neck, or over one arm. Maybe inside out? So you could read the AmeriCorps logo, but backwards? Would that be Satanic? Undemocratic? [ Continue reading: ] Fatwa Issued on bin Laden On the first anniversary of the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 and wounded 1,900, all of the city's 650 churches began ringing their bells at sunrise; traffic and work stopped for five minutes of silence; a memorial park of... [ Continue reading: ] Everybody Loves a Comeback Can the religious left get its groove back? Amy Sullivan discusses the challenges to progressive Christianity reasserting itself into politics in a Salon essay that is part history of the religious left -- its crowning achievements in the era of... [ Continue reading: ] Banned in the U.S.A. The French Catholic Church has succeeded in having a fashion company's ad posters, featuring a group of models posing in a Last Supper tableau, banned for its "'gratuitous and aggressive act of intrusion on people's innermost beliefs.'" The posters were... [ Continue reading: ]  Near the Looking Glass Gal Beckerman: What to make of a book entitled "Best Religion News Writing"? Two obvious questions come to mind before even flipping open the deceptively breezy-looking, pastel cover: Well, firstly, what is "religion news"? Is it the news of institutional happenings, papal health, and gay ordinations? Or is it something else entirely? [ Continue reading: ] My Radio, My God Lisa Anderson: "I haven't introduced myself to the KRCC staff as Lisa the Christian. And I thought that was okay until my second outing." NPR's gifts of the spirit and the Bible's strange demands. [ Continue reading: ] Rabbi Sez... Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of the ultra-orthodox Shas party in Israel, makes the New York Post for allegedly cursing Ariel Sharon and praying that G-d strike him down, kill him, and send him to a sleep from which he... [ Continue reading: ] Audio Wallis "Religion has to be disciplined by democracy. That means you don’t enter the public square and say I’m religious so I ought to win. Or God has spoken to me directly and I have the fix for Social Security. You... [ Continue reading: ] Business-Friendly Creation Care The New York Times' Laurie Goodstein investigates the environmental agenda of the National Association of Evangelicals and finds that, for all the NAE's Creation-Caring, an evangelical-Earth First marriage still isn't likely. The Rev. Rich Cizik, NAE vice president of governmental... [ Continue reading: ] Godcast Power Hours God-blogging is so old-new media. The next biggish thing is Godcasting, in which sermons are recorded and uploaded onto the internet to be downloaded onto iPods and the like. MP3 Bibles have been available for a while, but according to... [ Continue reading: ]  Competitive Victimhood BBC director general, Mark Thompson, bit back at Christian Voice -- the religious group most instrumental in organizing the protest and intimidation campaign against BBC executives after the broadcast of Jerry Springer: The Opera -- when he spoke at a... [ Continue reading: ] Disney's Wardrobe Kate Hawley: The aptly named Motive Marketing made sure Christians came out in droves to see The Passion of the Christ. Now, according to The New York Times, Disney has hired the California-based P.R. firm to work similar magic for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s classic children’s book, out in December 2005. The London Daily Telegraph frets the film will be The Passion of the Christ for kids. Which begs a leap into the land of political cliche: after a divisive red state/blue state election, what color will the film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe be? Lewis’s book defies easy categorization. It’s both a deeply religious allegory and an imaginative work of literature. And it’s English. But Disney is good at bridging divides to reach broad audiences, by taking stories rich in cultural significance and serving them as lukewarm oatmeal. So maybe the answer is: beige. To be fair, the movie’s not out yet. Maybe Andrew Adamson, the director of the Shreks, will bring us something artful that believers of all shades can enjoy. And look at the casting, which features two great actors: gender illusionist Tilda Swinton as the White Witch, and Brian Cox, the sympathetic pedophile from L.I.E., as the voice of Aslan. Perfect for the secular humanist child in all of us. [ Continue reading: ] A Burning Feeling Street preachers, pyromaniacs, Doug Henning: This is for you. (Supply your own lighter fluid.)... [ Continue reading: ] Donkey God While Hillary busies herself unveiling the religion she's always had and the rest of the Democratic establishment gets God as good as it can, a state rep. in Colorado appears to be the real article, pastor of a tiny church, liberal down the line, and feisty as hell. Rep. Terrance Carroll is obviously on the make, and Denver Post writer Douglas Brown seems happy get in on the legend early. Were tough questions asked? Was theology examined? Political positions explored? Nah. But it's still an interesting profile -- Brown has a story on his hands and he knows it, and with that knowledge he can't go far wrong. [ Continue reading: ] Slaughterhouse Story What a pleasure to read a story about Islam that has nothing to do with "the war on terror." Andrea Elliott offers up the story of a New Jersey halal slaughterhouse that is modest, evocative, and very fine to read: "...the call to prayer... slips out through a vent, blending with the drone of the New Jersey Turnpike. Inside, the voice moves from room to room, where chickens, bulls and goats arrive daily to meet their death. Blasted from loudspeakers, the sound hovers over the head butcher, Jaci DaSilva, a Brazilian immigrant who converted to Islam a decade ago." [ Continue reading: ]  No Tomorrow, for Whatever Reason Bill Moyers updates the article that caused a big flap last February for a possible second-hand misquotation of former Reagan secretary, James G. Watt, in The New York Review of Books. Though the Watt reference made for good snark --... [ Continue reading: ] The Miracle of Scalia Richard Cohen, a Washington Post columnist, finds a little bit of the miraculous in Justice Antonin Scalia's common-sensical declaration that the Ten Commandments do, in fact, contain a religious message. Scalia, who's played fast and loose with historical fact before,... [ Continue reading: ] Jewish Violence While Gaza Strip settlers await the government withdrawal planned for July, signs of a violent, if submerged, resistance are apparent in graffiti threats to Ariel Sharon, inviting the prime minister to join his dead wife or Yitzhak Rabin, the former... [ Continue reading: ] Kansas Episcopal Church Considers Separating The governing board of the Christ Episcopal Church of Overland Park, the largest parish in the Episcopal Diocese of eastern Kansas, has recommended that the parish separate from the diocese over recent disagreements about homosexuality and theology. Parish members will... [ Continue reading: ] Oprah Sect Secularism Another day, another broad generalization about the horserace between "religion" (define it as you will) and "secularism" (ditto). Today, secularism inches ahead with the speech of University of Wisconsin sociologist, Wayne Thompson, who claims that people -- namely white blue-state... [ Continue reading: ] Marrying Monarchs Edward Leigh, a British parliamentarian and Catholic, will introduce legislation today to repeal a 300-year old law preventing heirs to the throne from marrying a "Papist." Leigh's bill is not expected to receive sufficient time to pass, but is part... [ Continue reading: ]  Better to Burn Out Than to Fade Away... Michael Marcavage, the litigious 25-year old head of Repent America and near-martyr in the "Philly Four/Five" case, is no doubt happy to find himself back in the spotlight as jury selection for a federal lawsuit regarding events at Temple University... [ Continue reading: ] I See Your Subjugation of Women and Raise You the Worthlessness of the Disabled Faced with a growing number of injuries and potential deaths from backstreet abortions in Iran (of which there are at least 80,000 per year), religious conservative lawmakers have decided to ease the strict prohibitions on abortion which only allow for... [ Continue reading: ] Religion and State in Post-Post-War Japan The Japanese government has proposed an amendment to the Constitution to allow government bodies to participate in religious activities that fall within the categories of "social etiquette or folk events." Japan's separation of religion and state was introduced after World... [ Continue reading: ] Pope Joke Fallout New York Press editor Jeff Koyen has just resigned from his position after last week's cover story, "The 52 Funniest Things About The Upcoming Death of The Pope," which prompted big outrage from lots of folks -- including Senators Schumer... [ Continue reading: ] Fred Phelps Attends Gay Rights Forum! Kindof... There'll be fun for the whole family this Sunday, when Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., of the hate-spewing Westboro Baptist Church, takes the Equal Rights Coalition up on their offer for public debate at a forum for gay rights at Indiana... [ Continue reading: ] Christian v. Christian A group of Christians in the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys are protesting the bankruptcy reform bill introduced by Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa as being at odds with the biblical mandates for charity and debt-forgiveness. But Grassley... [ Continue reading: ] Pre-K Law The ACLU is arguing against the constitutionality of a Florida law setting up a pre-kindergarten program that will be run mostly by private day-cares and schools, including religious organizations that meet state standards. As the pre-K law is now written,... [ Continue reading: ] Justice Department: R.R.U. For anyone surpised that the House passed a bill last week that would assure tax-payer-funded organizations' right to religiously discriminate in hiring, there's more precedent for unequal opportunity in the Justice Department's religious-rights unit: a branch of the civil rights... [ Continue reading: ]  What Do You Know for Sure? "So what am I saying? I am saying the best way for the left to discover the values suitable to a pluralistic society is in a committed struggle with those forces that are hell-bent on reshaping America as a sentimental... [ Continue reading: ] The Controversy of Valladolid Jean-Claude Carriere's "The Controversy of Valladolid" opens off-Broadway, and apparently, the acting and directing falls flat. But AP reviewer Peter Santilli finds that the bland delivery doesn't overcome the importance of the subject matter of the documentary play: the re-creation... [ Continue reading: ] See You at the Pole Cleveland Jewish News reports on the flap at a local public school, Shaker Heights High, where some non-Christian students are angry about a Christian club that meets on school grounds, Students for God. There are some colorful descriptions of the... [ Continue reading: ] Tag Teamin' Next Tuesday, Florida Republican Representative David Weldon, with the support of the National Right to Life Committee, will introduce the Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act, a bill that would give the parents of Terri Schiavo the opportunity to argue their... [ Continue reading: ] They're Up, They're Down A short month and a half after reports that atheists were poised to take over the world -- err, a mid-sized cafeteria -- comes the news that atheism is on the verge of extinction. Again! According to a UPI report... [ Continue reading: ]  Jilbab Ruling Shabina Begum, the 16-year old British Muslim girl who took her school to court over the right to wear a full jilbab instead of the school uniform, won her appeal yesterday in London, with the judge deciding her human rights... [ Continue reading: ] Right to Discriminate The House narrowly passed a bill allowing religious groups under federal job-training contracts to discriminate in their hiring based on employees' religious beliefs. The current law disallows such discrimination for jobs that are financed by taxpayers -- not clerical positions,... [ Continue reading: ]  From the Standpoint of Grace Chris Lehmann: From Housekeeping to Gilead, Marilynne Robinson has always been exploring what counts as genuine faith. [ Continue reading: ] Who You Calling Centrist? Hillary Clinton's faith-talk continues, with televangelist-worthy invocations of God's name, and so do the long media meditations on what it all means. The latest example of Hillary-decoding comes from The Village Voice's Kristen Lombardi, in a feature story, "God is... [ Continue reading: ] Naughty Jerseys Is the NFL more godly than the NBA or Major League Baseball? No definitive word on that, but they are more righteously homophobic -- we mean anti-homosexual. Jim Buzinski of Outsports discovers that among the "naughty words" the NFL won't... [ Continue reading: ] Hook, Line, and Sink 'Em Next Wednesday, on March 9th, the National Association of Evangelicals will hold their annual convention in Washington, D.C., during which they will officially release their long-discussed guidelines for evangelical political engagement, "For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility." The guidelines prompted a lot of excitement last June, when reporters and liberal pundits misread a draft version of the document as signalling a more progressive evangelical politics, more focussed on poverty than culture war. In October, a revised version of the guidelines stripped away or dulled much of the language or provisions that could have been seen as progressive. Now, on the eve of their debut (released simultaneously with a collection of essays, Toward an Evangelical Public Policy), Rob Garver of The American Prospect suggests that the real story of the guidelines' release is not its policy content so much as the announced arrival of a mighty political power. [ Continue reading: ] Banks Drop Muslim Accounts Abdus Sattar Ghazali of Dawn writes that a growing number of American Muslims and Muslim businesses have had their bank accounts closed without explanation since September 11, 2001, including a New Jersey organization, the Islamic Education Centre, which was recently... [ Continue reading: ] Sister Dorothy's Legacy The New York Times points out that while the government of Brazil is trying to respond to the murder of Dorothy Stang with a new ban on logging in 20 million acres of the Amazon, the creation of two new... [ Continue reading: ]  Banning the V-Monologues in Uganda What does Eve Ensler have to do with the president of Uganda? The Vagina Monologues were banned in the country last week for promoting prostitution and homosexuality, and Charles Onyango-Obbo, a columnist for The East African, is perplexed, having considered... [ Continue reading: ] WCC Judge's Relatives Killed Joan Humphrey Lefkow, the U.S. District Judge once allegedly targeted for murder by Matthew Hale after she ruled that he could no longer call his white supremacist group the World Church of the Creator because another group had copyrighted the... [ Continue reading: ] Did I Ever Tell You About My Drinking Days? If you make enough self-deprecatory personal allusions, they will believe you're sincere, despite all evidence to the contrary? It's not as catchy a guiding mantra as that in Field of Dreams, but it seems to be the theory behind Bush's... [ Continue reading: ] AIO's Red Pill The attorneys involved in the dispute between the University of North Carolina and an evangelical Christian fraternity at the school, Alpha Iota Omega, have failed to reach a compromise as directed by a federal judge, and the case will now... [ Continue reading: ] Rumsfeld Sued The ACLU and Human Rights First announce that they've brought a civil lawsuit against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in northern Illinois federal court for the torture and abuse of eight men who were incarcerated in Iraq and Afghanistan. The... [ Continue reading: ] BBC Strikes Back "'We are not running some kind of Pop Idol competition in which the greatest number of votes gets a programme pulled from the schedule.'" BBC television director, Jana Bennett, will make a speech later today countering the attempts of religious... [ Continue reading: ] Passion, Year One The anniversary of The Passion has arrived, and with it comes the alternate "awards" universe of Christian conservatives determined to right the wrong they believe was visited upon them by the Academy's apparent indifference to Gibson's masterpiece. You got that? It was a masterpiece. What's unfortunate, and revealing, about such responses is that in many regards The Passion was a very good movie. It certainly made my top 10 for the year, which Million Dollar Baby did not. But, leaving aside all the political and theological arguments swirling around its reception, it was flawed in such obvious ways that the commitment of Christian conservative intellectuals to declaring its near-perfection reveals, I think, an uneasiness, an awareness that the masterpiece of Christian pop culture cinema is yet to come. [ Continue reading: ] Tangipahoa Parish Prayer Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has issued a statement condemning the federal court decision last week barring the Tangipahoa Parish School Board from beginning its meetings with prayer. U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan, who heard the case, ruled that the School... [ Continue reading: ] |