Justice, Osama bin Laden, and American Civil Religion
As I sat on my couch scanning Twitter and listening to the President describe the killing of Osama bin Laden, I realized that this was a high moment in American civil religion. Thanks to a couple colleagues here at Emory and our writing group, I’ve had civil religion on the brain lately. As the president [...]
Not Theology, but Authority: Rob Bell and the Evangelical Institutional Establishment
The criticism of Rob Bell’s Love Wins is not about theology. It is all about authority. In case you missed the hubbub surrounding Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins, I point you to Sara Staely’s wonderful post where she outlines John Piper and the neo-Calvinist establishment’s response to the book. She sums up the conflict nicely: [...]
WikiLeaks and the Sacrality of American National Security
This post originally appeared at Religion Nerd. It seems like everyday a new story emerges from the hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables recently released by WikiLeaks. In the wake of Cablegate, WikiLeaks has found its site shutdown, its services from Amazon and Paypal refused, and its founder arrested. On one level this is to [...]
The Simulacra of Yoga
No one wants to believe in fakery. Whatever we believe or do, we want it to be authentic. In a recent post about the Hindu American Foundation’s statement on the place of yoga as a Hindu practice, contributor Brad Bannon brought up the thorny issue of who owns religious practices. As he put it: Do [...]
Formations of Religion, or, Putting Scare Quotes Around Religion
John Lennon asked us to imagine a world without religion. But I would argue we have imagined religion into the world. Not the beliefs, practices, or traditions we call “religions.” I mean the category itself. We have imagined “religion.” I’m really glad they chose State of Formation as the name for this blog about religion. [...]
Michael J. Altman
Ph.D. student of American Religious Cultures in the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University. Specialization in American religious history and Asian religions in America. Twitter: @MichaelJAltman.
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Contributing Scholars
Rhee-Soo LeeRhee-Soo is currently a Master of Divinity candidate at Harvard Divinity School, focusing on Christianity. She is a recent graduate of Wesleyan University, and prior to attending HDS, she completed a year-long fellowship with the Episcopal Service Corps in Boston.
Trey PalmisanoTrey Palmisano was a 2012 participant in the State of Formation National Seminar on Narrative & Interreligious Cooperation. He holds a B.S. in English with a concentration in Writing from Towson University and an M.A. in Theology with a concentration in Systematic Theology from the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore, MD. He received the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theological Studies in 2012. His M.A. thesis work defended a methodological approach in the ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer with particular attention to the concepts of peace and violence. He is a member of the International Dietrich Bonhoeffer Society, the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, and the Evangelical Theological Society. A writer by trade, his work has appeared in such diverse publications as the Anglican Theological Review, Sojourners, The Baltimore Sun, and he served for a period of time as a faith columnist for the Baltimore Examiner. His past experience as an educator includes Carver Center for the Arts & Technology, a secondary education magnet school in Towson, MD, where he taught poetics and world literature, and Towson University, where he worked as an adjunct professor of English. He has worked as a curriculum developer creating original lessons and testing material for major educational publishers. He currently works as a process and procedures analyst in the Baltimore-Washington area. Trey is currently pursuing a second M.A. in Jewish Studies at Towson University, and his forthcoming book based on his thesis work is scheduled to be published through Wipf & Stock in 2013.
Stephanie Louise FisherStephanie (Steph) is from Napier, New Zealand. She has never not lived by the sea - within spitting distance of a beach, at least - until she won a scholarship from Nottingham University and came to the UK to complete her PhD. She studied music, psychology, education and other things at Massey University down under, then after a few years mainly working in theatres, she studied World Religions at Victoria University in Wellington, NZ.