popular culture

The title of Anne Lamott’s new book Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers is such a boldly brilliant summation that I laughed with delight the first time I heard it. So much truth in three words.

The divinely human compassion of “Jesus wept” meets the theology of Atlas Shrugged.

As if the whole Louie Giglio inaugural preaching debacle weren’t enough to sour many in on the religiosity of the American political process, conservative evangelical shock preacher Mark Driscoll stirred a hornet’s nest of Christianist hate and Christian outrage with the following…

Can business owners assert that their free exercise is being burdened when the coverage mandate is imposed not on them, but on their business? Does the for-profit corporation or LLC have religious beliefs of its own? Does General Motors practice religion? If not, do smaller corporations exercise religion? Or are the small businesses really asserting the religious rights of their owners?

Logic is the key to the story. In this case, once we know how many thousands of Americans are killed by guns each year and know that places with the fewest guns have the fewest murders, it’s only logical to regulate gun ownership and possession. But even the most convincing logic can rarely defeat a rich, emotionally powerfully, historically deep-rooted myth. And the gun control advocates’ progressive myth is depressingly thin and emotionally weak compared to the thick, potent store of myth wielded by their opponents.

Western experts, looking for a comprehensible narrative, mistake consistency for fact. The misconceptions are further compounded by how difficult it is to identify a potential suicide—even mental health professionals can get it wrong—and how easy it is to conflate suicide terrorists with regular terrorists, the vast majority of whom don’t strap on bombs, preferring to stay alive and fight.

The plot of Twilight: a young woman—clumsy and plain—is deeply and unconditionally loved and protected by an all-powerful, omnipotent being whose love makes her special. For a moment, Twi-hards let themselves believe, however crazy it sounds, that they too could be irresistibly beautiful one day, loved by an ideal God-man who sees them, really sees them.

I’m not here to kvetch about the adaptation of a landmark book into film. That is boring. And I really enjoyed On the Road the movie, which features some truly inspired casting, excellent performances all around, and a much stronger integration of the writer’s voice with the action of the film than, for example, the somewhat clunky Howl. What I am interested in is the way in which On the Road’s spiritual essence has been diluted.

I hate to break it to you, but Noah’s Flood is not a real thing. As geologist David Montgomery wrote in his recent history, The Rocks Don’t Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah’s Flood, the religious idea that the Flood was real has been to the actual history of geology as a science. But by now, however, science knows better. I can’t say as much for the media.

This list, in links and headlines, just skims the surface. But it gives a sense of what to watch for in 2013.