Monthly archive January, 2012
Outside the Law: Cheryl Perich and the First Amendment
There’s nothing quite like a First Amendment dispute to illuminate the subtleties of interpreting separation of church and state.
By Elissa Lerner
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time to uphold a forty year-old practice known as the “ministerial exception” in the case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School vs. Equal Employment Opportunity...
Mormon, Schmormon
Things we love about the new Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life poll on "Mormons in America?" So glad you asked:
Substitute your own word in here: "Many _____ feel they are misunderstood, discriminated against and not accepted by other Americans as part of mainstream society."
Women’s Bodies, Mediating the Revolution
From Khaled Fahmy's article, "Women, Revolution, and Army" in the Egyptian Independent:
Ibrahim [Samira Ibrahim, Egyptian woman who successfully sued the army for "subjecting her to a 'virginity test'"] may not be aware that the humiliating virginity test she was subjected to last March in the Hykestep military prison was not the first of its...
No time for games
Thanks to our friendly fellow blogger The Sensuous Curmudgeon for drawing our attention this story: a story about the quest for truth. A story about history and modernity. A story about one of the greatest stories ever told – with a children’s board game. And a story about the people who hate that game.
In a...
Party of the Kingdom of Heaven
An excerpt from Kathryn Harrison's op-ed in the New York Times on Friday about Joan of Arc, the subject of Harrison's forthcoming biography:
Like all holy figures whose earthly existence separates them from the broad mass of humanity, a saint is a story, and Joan of Arc’s is like no other. The self-proclaimed agent of God’s...
It’s in the Mail!
Dear Readers, If you want to receive a print copy of the Spring 2012 Events Calendar for The Center for Religion and Media at New York University (our publisher!) just ask! Post a comment to this post, include your name and complete address, and wait for the mail man. Happy spring! Ann
P.S. You can also...
Ralph Reed on Iowa
From the CNN article, "My Take: Iowa Caucus Results Puncture Myth of 'Evangelical Vote'" by Ralph Reed, founder and chairmen of the Faith and Freedom Coalition:
Here's how the evangelical vote broke down: 32% for Santorum, 18% for Ron Paul, 13% each for Romney, Gingrich and Rick Perry, 6% for Michele Bachmann and 1% for Jon...
Our Daily Links: While You Were Eating Fruitcake Edition
Worth the Wait: It may have taken 1,500 years but the Talmud finally has an index.
Early Adopters: I've long said that religion and porn are the two first groups to adopt new technologies. In "Christianity and the Future of the Book" at The New Atlantis Alan Jacobs writes, "Religious communities have been the...
Getting There Too Quickly:
Aldous Huxley and Mescaline
By Peter Bebergal
Between his 1932 vision of a sterile dystopia in Brave New World and the 1962 novel Island about a spiritual utopia, the author Aldous Huxley experienced two things; the Hindu religious philosophy known as Vedanta and psychedelic drugs. In Brave New World, people are addicted to Soma, a hallucinogenic that artificially simulates a...
