holidays

News last week that holiday decorations in Chicago’s Daley Plaza will be joined this year by a light-up “A” for atheism served as a reminder that though the anti-religion camp may claim victory over believers on many fronts, iconography is not one of them.

Thanksgivukkah is a way of being out, loud, and proud— We’re here! We’re Jewish! We eat turkey AND latkes!—but can Jews ever compete with the juggernaut of Christmas?

Secular holidays, actually constituting a quasi-sacred calendar, span the entire year: From New Year’s Day, the King Holiday, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day, and now, at long last, Thanksgiving Day.

I wanted to think about how we mediate the past for children—and how we tell stories about children who lived in the past. Writing about religion, memory, and children’s literature became my way of doing that.

In the wake of a series of high-profile April Fool’s pranks and a hoax at the expense of mega-preacher Joel Osteen, the question remains: what makes us believe in bacon-flavored mouthwash, a Martian invasion, or the renunciation of faith by one of the world’s most famous Christians?

I think we should be cautious about attempts to frame the Boston bombings, or for that matter any profound act of violence, mainly as a failure of (or an injunction for) “interfaith cooperation.”

What anger over Google’s Easter doodle reveals.

While the Western Wall remains under the administration of a state-sponsored religious entity that prohibits the free worship of its citizens, President Obama should not visit the site. To do so would be a tacit endorsement of the laws and policies that limit civil liberties in Israel in favor of religious control of public prayer, life-cycle events, and, in cases involving conversion, even questions of citizenship.

A megachurch collapses under the Word of Faith doctrine.

The title of Anne Lamott’s new book Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers is such a boldly brilliant summation that I laughed with delight the first time I heard it. So much truth in three words.