America

Flooded highways in Louisiana

Into the Flood

By Philipp Meyer | September 2, 2005

An EMT drives from Texas to Louisiana to do what he can.

Jonathan Edwards

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Evangelical

By Jeff Sharlet | May 4, 2005

Jonathan Edwards and the making of America.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Reading Niebuhr Instead

By Scott Korb | April 11, 2005

A Christian realist for the reality-based community.

Baba

Baba, Baba, Everywhere!

By Peter Manseau and Jeff Sharlet | December 11, 2004

God is a Dickhead — conclusive proof from Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible.

"Whether it was Ahab's or Jonah's it was too soon to say..."

The Buddha Whale

By Peter Manseau and Jeff Sharlet | May 24, 2004

Hunted to the brink of extinction, the authors look for a place to hide.

"So what if you can't pin down the exact history of yoga..."

Yoga for Skeptics

By Elizabeth Kadetsky | May 11, 2004

Desperate for enlightenment, Westerners flock to India. But the modern yogis’ link to a mystical ancient lineage may be mere hocus pocus.

BUY IT!

Mortal, Eat This Scroll!

By Peter Manseau and Jeff Sharlet | March 26, 2004

Read the story that started it all. An excerpt from Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible.

Will Oldham

When We Were Ambiguous

By Laurel Snyder | March 17, 2004

The almost-breaking point of Will Oldham.

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.

"The Angel of the Revelation," William Blake

Hermaphrodite Terrorist Angel

By Peter Manseau and Jeff Sharlet | February 22, 2004

How many holy rollers does it take to pray the devil out of a hermaphrodite terrorist angel?

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.

Cash backstage in an undated photo.

The Gospel According to Johnny Cash

By Jon Hooten | September 15, 2003

Was the Man in Black our own personal Jesus?

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.

Mitre Peak, New Zealand

Coming Home, O Lord, I’m Coming Home

By Cheryl Pearl Sucher | April 4, 2003

An expat returns to America just in time for holy war.

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection

Losing Their Religion?

By Diane Winston | February 13, 2003

The Salvation Army has been taking money from the government for years. But at what cost?

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.