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   A Priest, a Rabbi, and George Carlin Walk Into Heaven... The universe is in balance, George Carlin once said, because Jesus has a little statue of a middle-class American hypocrite on his dashboard. In a bold move, NBC pays tribute to the dead comic with an old Saturday Night Live... [ Continue reading: ]  Fresh Brains for Zombie Buddha! Killing the Buddha.com -- god for the godless, cheaper than church, Allah in the family -- rises from the grave, again. The website Peter Manseau, Jeremy Brothers and I founded in 2000, declared dead once and for all after numerous resurrections during the last two years, marches back onto the internet like a zombie in search of fresh brains. And KtB has found them: three Revealer (and NYU journalism grad school) alumni, Meera Subramanian, Ashley Makar, and Marissa Kantor-Dennis, have revived the anti-tradition of Buddha-killing. [ Continue reading: ] Jewish Anarchists In the late 19th century, the biggest political movement in Jewish America was anarchism, equally opposed to church and state. One of the offspring of that movement was a Yiddish paper called Freie Arbeiter Stimme, "The Voice of Labor," lovingly documented in this hour long film available for a free download here. [ Continue reading: ]  Mystical Realism The NYT delivers news of The Shack, a gi-normous bestseller of a Christian novel, to the secular world, comparing its sales to Eckhart Tolle's new age blockbuster, A New Earth. But the paper misses the more interesting connection between Tolle's... [ Continue reading: ] The Diane Rehm Show Sharlet: I'll be discussing my new book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, on The Diane Rehm Show, from 11-noon, east coast time.... [ Continue reading: ]  Southern Baptist Style and Substance Sharlet: Bob Smietana, religion reporter for the Tennessean and occasional Revealer contributor, responds to my Friday post on the most overlooked religion story of last week, the change in leadership of America's biggest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention.. [ Continue reading: ]  The 'F' Word What Rick Warren, a founder of modern advertising, and the dirtiest word in politics don't have in common. Adapted from The Family, by Jeff Sharlet, and excerpted here from CounterPunch. [ Continue reading: ]  Big Baptist Blowout! Little Press. Big, big story missed by the press: Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting, held in Indianapolis, rejected the relatively moderate vision of outgoing SBC president Frank Page by electing -- with big numbers -- Johnny Hunt, an Atlanta... [ Continue reading: ]  Bomb Throwers and Hall Monitors Sharlet: Mark Silk, an eminent scholar of religion, politics, and journalism, takes issue with my Casting Stones post on the how the press is re-arranging its account of Obama's ascent now that his victory is assured... [ Continue reading: ]  Apocalypse Savings "The mind is capable of artful compartmentalisations; in one moment, a man might confidently believe in predictions of Armageddon in his lifetime, and in the next, he might pick up the phone to inquire about a savings fund for his grandchildren's college education or approve of long-term measures to slow global warming." Novelist Ian McEwanreads the story of the end of the world. [ Continue reading: ] Machine Politics Sharlet: WNYC's Leonard Lopate and I discuss "maximalism," cronyism, and The Family.... [ Continue reading: ] You Say Journalism, I Say Betrayal Sharlet: Harper's editor Bill Wasik and I talk about The Family and how the article we collaborated on as author and editor five years became a book. Here's an excerpt. [ Continue reading: ] Obama's Exorcism It looks like it's the end of the line for Clinton and the beginning of a new battle for Obama, and that means it's time for the press to do what it does best -- tidy up the tale, craft a chronicle of inevitability, obscure its own role in the political process... [ Continue reading: ]  What's Next, L'il Buddy? Time's Steven Gray follows up Obama's decision to resign from Trinity United Church of Christ with what we think is the most logical and interesting story: How does the church move on? Of course, for a major media media outlet... [ Continue reading: ]
Bobby Jindal, James Dobson, the revealer
This Guy! Jesse Sunenblick, a former Revealer, writes: "i know you're probably sick of the subject, but you should write about this guy. he is a wacky American creation: an Indian weened on the Brady Bunch (hence the nickname "Bobby"), who converted... [ Continue reading: ] We're All Gay Episcopalians Now There's some irony in an Episcopalian informing us that the concerns of the Anglican Communion, which has in the past been the dominant church of an empire (Britain's) and a rising power (America, before we became an empire, back when Episcopalians were even more overrepresented in Congress than they are today) should concern us all... [ Continue reading: ] |