Monthly archive August, 2011
Safe Words
Abby Ohlheiser: All the religious language of the last fortnight's Perry and Ames fest '11 (or should that be '12) made me click on this tweet (despite the parenthetical clue) without thinking for a second that it would be a comment on anything other than something Bachmann or Perry have talked about recently....
Fall 2011 Revealer Reading Series
Books and more books! Join us this fall for three reading events that will feature some of our very favorite religion writers.
Why I Became Muslim
From James Davis' interviews with Muslims in Florida, for the Sun Sentinel, to mark Ramadan:
Q. Why did you want to become a Muslim? People of color in America were treated as second-class citizens. The Nation of Islam offered a different way of seeing yourself, as a person of value and dignity. That was appealing...
Service Announcement for Journos
A friendly reminder to all of us at the start of this new election cycle: "Pro-life" means much, much more than just anti-abortion. It's an entire set of beliefs leveled at legislating bodily autonomy. For women, yes and most controversially, but also for the sick, the poor, the disabled, the terminal, gays, parents; in short,...
From Neal Gabler's article, "The Elusive Big Idea," at The New York Times yesterday:
It is no secret, especially here in America, that we live in a post-Enlightenment age in which rationality, science, evidence, logical argument and debate have lost the battle in many sectors, and perhaps even in society generally, to superstition, faith, opinion...
Been Around For a Long, Long Year
A Review of No Sympathy for the Devil: Christian Pop Music and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism, by David Stowe, The University of North Carolina Press, 291 pages
by Garrett Baer
There is a certain (dead) art to the mixtape, difficult to theorize but easy enough to hear. It’s not quite captured in Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity,...
Reality TV on Vodka
The astute viewer will notice that, in both of these interludes, Kosov is wearing a large Star of David pendant that dangles above her dramatically pushed-up cleavage. In a...
Who You Calling a Terrorist?
In Peter King's world, the battle has only two sides and only one winning strategy.
by Amy Levin and Abby Ohlheiser
Lately media outlets have been telling us what Americans believe, from how much we think we should be taxed, to how much we like Muslims. Even how (much) we believe in God. What Pew or...
Science or Academic Atheism?
Amy Levin: What happens when we give scientists the authority to speak about God? This was my first question when I discovered Jonathan Pararajasingham’s recent video compilation called “50 Famous Academics and Scientists Talk About God.” It's posted on Open Culture and the list of those featured includes 16 Nobel prize winners, including a...
Liberty, the Word
From Ryan Lizza's profile of Michele Bachmann at The New Yorker:
Liberty is the concept—or at least the word—most resonant with the Republican Party’s Tea Party faction, which Bachmann’s Presidential aspirations depend upon. It is a peculiarity of the current political moment that a politician with a history of pushing sectarian religious beliefs in government...
