consumerism
Truth-Telling in Vulgaria
Questions for Kathryn Joyce, who bursts the international Christian adoption bubble in her new book, The Child Catchers.
The Heavenly BMW
Gawker, where KtB gets all its religion news, reports that police found Zachery Tims, Jr., pastor of New Destiny Christian Center, an 8,000-strong megachurch in Orlando, dead with what appeared to be drugs in his pocket in Times Square this week. As it happens, I’m pretty certain it was Tims that KtB cofounder Peter Manseau…
Ingrate Rejects Hajj Souvenirs
What the hell kind of souvenirs are these? Caftans? Prayer beads? Dates? I was hoping you’d bring me a t-shirt or a keychain or at the very least, a plastic stoning-the-pillar snowglobe! Jesus! Next time, don’t bother! @
God and Wal-Mart
This week I spoke with GRITtv’s Laura Flanders about the surprisingly diverse Christian Right opposition to the Obama administration. Is racism a major component of the tea party movement? No doubt. But is the broader right a lot more complicated? Absolutely. I witnessed that complexity a few weeks ago in the prayer rooms of the…
Stuff White Evangelicals Like
Have you always wanted to get into the Stuff White People Like craze, but you can’t because you don’t relate to its implicit godless secular humanism? Well, maybe this one’s for you. Since August of last year, this recovering evangelical in Seattle, a preacher’s kid married to a preacher’s kid, has been tallying a list…
Fairies or Princesses?
We recently received a delightful short essay from James Royce McGuire, writer of fiction and plays, called “The Fairy Land.” Let’s wander through it together! It’s extremely easy to lose our way spiritually. Tennessee Williams, in his play Suddenly Last Summer, compares the delicacy of a poet to that of a spider web. In a…
Credit Card Rosary
My friend/hero Will, who for the months since his success in electing Barack Obama president has made it his business to travel around “visiting people,” sent me a delightful little gift that he picked up at the gift shop of the new Catholic cathedral in Oakland, California. It’s a rosary, made out of bumps on…
How Do I Look?
As the old saying goes: If you’re not a slobby activist when you’re twenty, you don’t have a heart. If you’re not a fashion plate by thirty, it’s time to go shopping.
Brand Name Buddhism
For Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, it’s alright to get a little dirty, so long as you know which detergent will get your karma clean.
Yoga for Skeptics
Desperate for enlightenment, Westerners flock to India. But the modern yogis’ link to a mystical ancient lineage may be mere hocus pocus.
