https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to marilynne robinson en https://religiondispatches.org/2022/08/03/breaking-marilynne-robinson-over-her-refusal-acknowledge-dark-side-puritanism Breaking up is hard to do, and I am not at all prepared to discard my deep love and admiration for novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson . Among her novels, I treasure Lila in particular for its deep tenderness. Among… Wed, 03 Aug 2022 02:32:36 EDT Peter Laarman 8248eb8b-c655-4115-8922-fbe708844780 https://religiondispatches.org/2020/11/24/why-americas-whitewashed-thanksgiving-needs-go-short-study-power-white-christian Readers of RD don’t need to be told that the image of “The First Thanksgiving” that Americans carry around in their heads is mainly the product of 19th century romanticism: Longfellow with a dash of Disney. I want to argue… Tue, 24 Nov 2020 12:49:33 EST Peter Laarman 393f5338-f636-4deb-926e-1b4c4a6c4e0b https://religiondispatches.org/2020/04/02/what-fundamentalist-christian-fiction-can-teach-us-about-our-american-crisis Fundamentalist Christian support for President Trump is a commonly known, if poorly understood, political dynamic in the United States today. That support sometimes takes surprising shape to outsiders—as when, last year, President Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White strode the White… Thu, 02 Apr 2020 05:06:28 EDT Christopher Douglas 76487387-7046-4989-bbd8-8443b32fb7be https://religiondispatches.org/2016/06/09/progress-christ-commercial-america-review-chris-lehmanns-money-cult At 400 pages, Chris Lehmann’s The Money Cult: Capitalism, Christianity, and the Unmaking of the American Dream examines in appropriate depth the “mystery just how America’s once-austere and communal version of dissenting Protestantism developed into such a ripe recruiting ground… Thu, 09 Jun 2016 04:05:31 EDT Peter Laarman 04c6293b-efb3-4967-9af3-21e8e1289fe7 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/06/09/westandwithisaac-movement-lgbt-inclusion-mennonite-church Late last month, when my pastor Isaac Villegas was getting his ministerial credentials suspended for officiating a same-sex wedding, I suddenly remembered an email he sent me in 2014, when I—through stops and starts but mostly stops—was trying to decide… Thu, 09 Jun 2016 01:00:45 EDT Scott Schomburg f6374b7c-afb3-4a81-a830-ca10e1ec5180 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/06/08/untold-tale-american-fiction-vs-religious-right What inspired you to write If God Meant to Interfere: American Literature and the Rise of the Christian Right? I really wanted to figure something out: what the surprising, strange, unexpected return of conservative Christianity meant for American literature in… Wed, 08 Jun 2016 12:00:51 EDT Christopher Douglas 0162e953-a55c-478a-8828-10dc91d2ee8c https://religiondispatches.org/2016/05/09/why-we-should-teach-theology-public-university Theology, which influences so much of public discourse, should not be the exclusive property of the faithful. Mon, 09 May 2016 09:52:10 EDT Jonathan Sheehan 2b473232-e039-4556-9171-f18ae99337bf https://religiondispatches.org/2015/10/19/let-there-be-light-handwritten-draft-king-james-bible-reveals-secrets-its-creation The King James Bible may well be the greatest work of literature ever written by committee—and now we know a bit more about the collaboration that produced it. Jeffrey Allen Miller, an English professor at Montclair State University conducting research… Mon, 19 Oct 2015 03:39:34 EDT Ed Simon 90f69850-bf93-458f-8448-72cfc330d675 https://religiondispatches.org/2014/10/08/his-own-received-him-not-jimmy-carter-first-evangelical-president Randall Balmer on Jimmy Carter, the role of the president’s faith, and the real reason for the rise of the Religious Right. Wed, 08 Oct 2014 03:43:38 EDT Randall Balmer 9a3520b4-09d9-4d3f-92ca-2342d9a050a1 https://religiondispatches.org/2013/11/06/one-true-christian-his-age What inspired you to write Spider in a Tree? I live in Northampton, Massachusetts, across the road from a beautiful cemetery. It’s quiet there, with lots of big, generous trees and many old gravestones, going as far back as the… Wed, 06 Nov 2013 05:06:56 EST Susan Stinson ecfcda95-a01a-4d6d-9816-839d4a58d972 https://religiondispatches.org/2013/04/22/islam-essential-america This book is my own effort to equip myself to talk about and engage with the nation’s fastest growing religion, to offer a snapshot of one of its most influential institutions, and to tell the stories of the students and scholars who have taken up the challenge of this experiment in American education. Mon, 22 Apr 2013 05:58:57 EDT Scott Korb fa292a49-99b4-4e9b-b3f8-d52b395dcc2c https://religiondispatches.org/2011/11/21/why-world-needs-religious-studies The first time I went to the American Academy of Religion conference it really got my hopes up. This was the fall of 2006 and, with only a summer in between, I’d just finished college and begun my first year of a PhD program in religious studies… Mon, 21 Nov 2011 04:45:39 EST Nathan Schneider b0bdacba-825a-4627-b8dc-bc36eae329fb https://religiondispatches.org/2010/06/02/progressive-religious “Taking aim” at both the Religious Right and the New Atheists, a new book aims to make progressive politics safe for the religious, and religion safe for progressive politics. Wed, 02 Jun 2010 09:39:14 EDT Robert P. Jones 8cb4597d-f39b-473a-8917-04bb4ca1e330 https://religiondispatches.org/2010/05/12/heaven-our-enduring-fascination-afterlife Where contemporary culture has come to think of heaven as a place to chat, catch up with friends, and eat ice cream, conservative believers are concerned that God has been left out of the picture. A new book by Newsweek’s religion editor, Lisa Miller, covers this and other top stories on the celestial beat. Wed, 12 May 2010 04:41:15 EDT Lisa Miller 039145d1-29d9-471d-ae8e-48098844cd8d https://religiondispatches.org/2009/06/17/so-deep-wound-home-and-novels-marilynne-robinson Pulitzer Prize-winner Marilynne Robinson’s third novel in as many decades is packed with the author’s signature themes of struggle, torment, grace, mystery and vulnerability-in other words: Christianity. Indeed, only a Christian of uncommon mettle could write a novel so untainted by the bastardized tropes of Christian culture. Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:09:12 EDT Garret Keizer 457d1418-71ba-476b-8445-e9ea21b9bc9f https://religiondispatches.org/2009/06/01/putting-protest-back-protestant-reclaiming-spirit-resistance Why has so much religious leadership come to look like “the bland leading the bland”? On the occasion of Pentecost, we present a romp through the wide range of Protestantisms, and answer the question: Why is that biblical book called “Acts” and not “Lazing About”? Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:57:16 EDT Peter Laarman cfd78ef0-9a48-45d2-b51a-85c1c6bb65dd https://religiondispatches.org/2009/04/19/rdbook-there-nothing-new-about-new-atheism Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett—the new atheists are often out of their depth when it comes to real engagement with religious ideas. And what if the new atheism is not so much about theology as about politics? Sun, 19 Apr 2009 11:08:02 EDT Ibrahim Abusharif e12c244a-61e9-4084-8aa7-9c88067108e8