holidays

While many evangelicals continue to treat Halloween as evil the holiday actually includes significant Christian contributions.

RD’s weekly review doesn’t flinch when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar shows up in a Stetson.

While Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell didn’t say anything about Wicca, per se, when she talked about “dabbling into witchcraft,” her more recent “kill the witch” comments will surely distance her further from pagan communities used to dealing (especially around Halloween) with this confusion between the swirling cultural tropes of “the witch” and those who embrace “witch” as a religious self-description.

Tribulation Trail, and other “Hell Houses” are not solely managing hypothetical fears of what may happen in end-times scenarios; they are about managing fears about the present and imagining a way out now. This “way out” is much more than metaphysical. It seems to fit with the material realities of what it is like to be a member of the working class of the U.S., by offering a sense of orientation and self-worth to people who have been demoralized and exploited in almost every other possible way.

One wonders how religious leaders might have exercised a more meaningful presence in the event as it unfolded and was engaged across a global digital landscape. As I scanned the emerging Facebook communities throughout the day and monitored Twitter feeds and news site comments, it was clear that few religious leaders were participating in what has to have been the most significant global spiritual conversation that has ever taken place on Earth.

The only religion roundup that doesn’t fear Yoga.

Only this time it’s the Bible and the Heretics include Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Rick Warren.

Which witch is which?

When I started reading it the whole universe unfolded before me.

Can you be a progressive and still be opposed to abortion, or to gay rights, or [insert hot-button social/cultural issue here]?