popular culture

Interfaith Alliance lobbies textbook publishers to stand up to Texas’ historical white-washing

Welcome to the first installment of our ongoing coverage of television’s latest contribution to the cultural intersection of science and religion, with bonus themes to include: the body, artificial intelligence, paganism, original sin, immigration, and race. Join Diane Winston, Anthea Butler, Salman Hameed, and Henry Jenkins every week as they delve into deep exegesis of Caprica.

In this third installment of Mark Dery’s cultural critique-cum-“nonfiction novella” about a born-again teen’s transcendent encounter with Ziggy Stardust in the 1970s, our hero experiences an agape that is equal parts sanctified rapture and endorphin rush at a radical Friday night coffeehouse church. Meanwhile, the hippie Jesus of the Jesus Freaks reaches the big time in mainline protestantism.

In this opening episode of Mark Dery’s original, autobiographical essay (a “nonfiction novella”) about a suburban teen’s transcendent encounter with Ziggy Stardust, we’re introduced to David Bowie’s astro-hippie alter ego from the early 1970s, a glam-rock deity of Frankensteinian spookiness and ladyboy vulnerability.

For the past half-decade, Scientology has responded to withering attacks with a variety of aggressive and secretive tactics, drawing comparisons to the CIA and FBI. After a recent report alleging the use of violence, however, the church has responded by hiring an ‘independent’ panel of editors and journalists to produce a 20-page assessment of the report.

A new book illuminates the making of scientific frauds.

Theologian did not endorse bipartisanship.

Explaining the Beck strategy.

We can rest easy, knowing that our government wants us to be safe from forced implantation of microchips. But it’s not about civil liberties, it’s about dispensational paranoia and fear of the “Mark of the Beast.”

Pushback against Beck’s social justice comments only fuel Beck.