Gary Laderman

Let’s just face the facts and not kid ourselves anymore. It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee… er, tea. The Republican Party is not a political party but is now a full-fledged religious movement.

Forget the war on drugs. As Jimmy Carter recently argued in the New York Times, it is time to call off this wasted effort.

And so the world still turns. No rapture, no living hell, no Armageddon. We are where we were before the weekend with no signs of Christ’s return, facing the same ol’ same ol’: Arnold’s love child, Newt’s flame-out, life without Oprah. Perhaps this might be a nice teachable moment to reflect on all this—not nonsense at all, but rather an illuminating cultural moment that reveals an awful lot about the role of religion in our crazy world. What are the key takeaways from the “mediapocalypse”? Here are five for your consideration: