popular culture

RD News Round-Up—December 2, 2008. Rick Warren and Reader’s Digest’s multimedia platform; Faith-based orgs and Katrina; Churches for sale; Breakaway Episcopalians; and Bob Jones U. apologizes for racism; and Ted Haggard returns.

From “God Hates Fags” to Desmond Tutu’s calls for compassion, religion has been deeply intertwined with the struggle for AIDS justice. Fully two decades after activists first challenged church authority on HIV/AIDS religion’s report card is mixed.

Playing Gods, a new board game making headlines, is more than just a playful riff on religion. If we want to understand religions, we have to understand their game-like qualities, and that religion might, at the heart of it all, be a game. Which does not make it trivial.

Since the 2004 defeat of John Kerry, a handful of religious Inside-the-Beltway Democrats—called the religious left by some—have seen their influence rise dramatically. But how progressive is their “broader agenda?” And what of religious left leaders who include reproductive justice and LGBT civil rights on their list?

The proper role of government is to punish evildoers, Pastor Rick Warren tells Sean Hannity. If the Rev’s read is to be believed, the United States is in deep trouble.

As we help US culture emerge from its anti-scientific faith moment, we need to stress a rational morality.

The conservative evangelical founder of “The Call,” Lou Engle, is on a crusade to end legal abortion in the United States. He believes that George W. Bush and his Supreme Court picks were the result of prayer and, as depicted graphically in Jesus Camp, he aims to inspire young evangelicals to defeat the forces of Satan and his legislation.

The fantasy realms of online gaming become even more surreal when religion enters the scene; imagine Batman going on pilgrimage to Mecca, or a virtual crucifixion, or massive Bibles, raining from the sky.

This Halloween, apart from your garden-variety ghouls, skeletons, monsters, witches, vampires and zombies, Americans will be visited by the ghosts of past presidents, the spirits of dead soldiers, and by the souls of those who endured slavery. It is a season of reckoning, both social and political. The election, on the other hand, is about life, today, now. Or is it?

When an American TV show borrows from Eastern philosophy, it leaves the ethical dimension behind while offering a healthy dose of materialism. Even so, it might have something to teach us.