popular culture

Michael Jackson, pop theologian and transcendent performer, went from Jehovah’s Witness to Nation of Islam to Islam searching for the well-being embedded in so many of his songs. Farah Fawcett, who was so much more than a pretty face and healthy head of hair, courageously faced death on camera in a youth-obsessed culture.

According to a pathbreaking new book, Wal-Mart’s success in reframing traditional gender roles, bending the curricula of business schools, and sanctifying working-class consumer capitalism, help explain the connections between conservative politics, the market economy, and family values.

One of six prosperity preachers being investigated by the senate, Creflo Dollar (and his son) now face a $10M lawsuit for stealing a texting scheme…

Can the efficacy of prayer be determined through a double-blind clinical trial? Do studies measure prayer in ways that even make sense? Perhaps we’re learning more about medical science than about the healing power of prayer.

Thomas Becket was murdered at the suggestion of the powerful King Henry II, who then did public penance. Do pundits like Bill O’Reilly, who spoke so hatefully of George Tiller, likewise bear some responsibility for that crime?

Simply put: Font matters. Is it possible that the most pervasive typeface of late capitalism—Helvetica—is telling us what the gods wish: Do not worry. Trust in me. Put your value here, and you will be rewarded?

We should not overlook the New Atheists’ support for science, progressive views and legitimization of non-belief as a viable alternative. Unfortunately, their record is also marked by an intolerance of religious people and the alienation of potential progressive allies.

Do Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, and other true believers really offer a different path, or are their methods and manner merely a mirror image of the fundamentalism they so despise? We are spiritual animals and must learn to live with the complexities and paradoxes of religion—and of the natural world as well.

The Star Trek franchise was famous for its utopian social vision, going boldly where no popular entertainment had gone before. But the new movie takes us back in time, to an age when political divisions were in stark black and white.

Though surveys of American religion continue to reveal a rise in the “no religion,” and “unaffiliated” categories the transcendent experience of a Wilco show can lead the way to a more nuanced understanding.