exegesis

reviews and commentary

Whose passion exactly are we're talking about here?

Whose Passion?

By Patton Dodd | February 25, 2004

How Mel Gibson turned the blood of Christ into a marketing plan.

Image from "Knocking of Heaven's Door: American Religion in the Age of the Counterculture" by Mark Oppenheimer (detail)

That Old Time Religion

By Jeff Sharlet | November 24, 2003

Still strange, but different: Three new books look at the changing shape of religion in America.

Bostoner Rebbe

In the Court of the Bostoner Rebbe

By Micah Gil | November 13, 2003

A black hat diaspora in the city on the hill.

Another heresy goes up in smoke

Burn This Book

By Anders Zabotinsky | November 13, 2003

Melvin Jules Bukiet is the worst writer alive.

Page from the Gospel of Thomas, detail.

What It Is, What It Was

By Peter Manseau | October 15, 2003

How many one true religions can dance on the head of a pin?

Cover art from The Book Against God (detail)

The Book About The Book Against God

By Scott McLemee | July 9, 2003

Critic James Wood’s sanctified blasphemies take fictional form in his new novel.

Abraham mourning for the death of Sarah (detail), Marc Chagall, 1931-1939

W.W.A.D.

By Jeff Sharlet | June 6, 2003

The new neocons ask: What would Abraham do?

Madalyn Murray O’Hair

Don’t Stop Unbelieving

By Scott McLemee | May 20, 2003

A new biography of America’s most godless woman.

Behind the Pulpit

Behind the Pulpit

By Daniel S. Brenner | May 2, 2003

“Are you talking to me?” and other tough-love questions from the Church.

“[Streisand] is much more beautiful than ‘pretty’ people…. The banality of mere prettiness is a blight on American movies.”

The Long Moan

By Laurence Klavan | May 2, 2003

What did Pauline Kael really think about Jews on film anyway?

Piss Christ (detail), Andre Serano, 1989

His So-Called Life

By Peter Manseau | April 16, 2003

Pogroms, plagues, Jesus books… ‘Tis the season.

Nicolas Cage as Charlie Kaufman

Punctuated Equilibrium

By Matt Stefon | March 20, 2003

In Adaptation, the evolution of art occurs in fits and starts — and is never free of the hand of its creator.

Scribes of an unfinished canon. Yiddish writers gathered in Vilna, Lithuania, 1919.

Canonizing Yiddish

By Irina Reyn | February 21, 2003

Find me a find, catch me a catch, make me an anthology.

“As bad as it gets.”

Schmidt Happens

By Rob Stennett | February 13, 2003

Sold your soul? Buy it back for $22.

Leonardo DiCaprio, catching God if he can

Gods of New York

By Patton Dodd | January 16, 2003

America began in the streets — with religious violence.

“You will not wear upon yourself a garment made of two different kinds of materials.” -- Leviticus

Stripes

By Elizabeth Frankenberger | December 23, 2002

Don’t blame Gap ads for the current trend in fashion. A look at the history of the Devil’s vogue.

Buy the book.

Image Conscious

By Jeff Sharlet | December 12, 2002

Dara Horn sets out to write the Great American Yiddish Novel — in English.

Smells Like Christian Spirit

The Young and the Angstless

By Peter Manseau | November 15, 2002

A new book about GenX Christians shows just how god-damned happy they really are.