popular culture

In “Battling for the Soul of the Democratic Party,” journalist Sarah Posner examined the role of DC outfits like Faith in Public Life, who seek to find common ground among disparate religious organizations. Here, FPL responds.

Religion is online in a big way, from pastors blogging to faith-based social networking to a digital Ten Commandments. It’s all about building God’s kingdom on the internet.

A radical queer group claims to have burned a “Mormon Bible,” vandalized churches, and urges supporters to fight back “by any means necessary.” Ariana Childs Graham asks: Is this activism or just a really bad idea?

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.

Peter Manseau’s first novel, Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter, takes on themes of Jewish-Christian enmity, the trials of translation, and the idea of language as a virtual homeland.

The original bad girl, the Che Guevara of sex, Billy Graham’s right-hand woman: Bettie Page was many things to many people, and the story of her life spans American culture from burlesque to Christian Missionary.

RD News Round-Up—December 15, 2008: Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative after 8 years; ‘War on Christmas’ mash-up; Religious Right layoffs and cutbacks, ‘Prop. 8—The Musical,’ Prop. 8 Gear, and the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress.

A major newsmagazine gets theological, and infuriates conservatives. But the Newsweek story doesn’t even scratch the surface of contemporary religion scholarship on gay marriage.

Forget the standard litany of the best-selling books and most popular movies… This year’s list includes comics, rock bands, Battlestar Galactica, “Hava Nagila” sung to the tune of “The Twist,” and “I Am the Walrus” translated into Aramaic.

Newsweek actually gets religion, writes the author of the recent gay marriage issue. It’s the Christian Right culture warriors who claim that God possesses their prejudices who are mistaken.