Why Monty Python Makes for Good Religion: Reflections on Religion and Film, Part 3
(This is Part 3 of a 3-part series. See Part 1 and Part 2) OFFENSE Jesus was most recently portrayed in celluloid form by a Portuguese model with great hair. I’m talking about The Bible, a miniseries broadcast on The History Channel. In it we learn that Jesus was gentle and strong; that Jews really [...]
Why Monty Python Makes for Good Religion: Reflections on Religion and Film, Part 2/3
(This is Part 2 of a 3-part series. See Part 1 here.) AUTHORITY There is another hot issue in a discussion about religion and the Bible: the question of who has authority over the telling of a narrative? How about The Bible miniseries on The History Channel? It’s a very confident little piece, isn’t [...]
Why Monty Python Makes for Good Religion: Reflections on Religion and Film, Part 1/3
Humor; humor is difficult. Religion; religion is difficult. They can both be reassuring, and discomfiting. They can affix labels, or they can liberate. They can be subversive, or they can uplift the dominant paradigm. Both can be thrilling and boring. They can be unifying, or alienating. Religion and humor both aspire to help us live [...]
Christianity Provides Me With the Costly Option of Nonviolence and Peacemaking
A dear friend from Chicago visited me recently in Los Angeles. Both of us are Christians, and while we agreed that violent force was not preferable, I think he felt I was too radical in implying that any show of violence is unchristian. “I agree,” he told me, “that we shouldn’t kill people, I just [...]
James Baldwin and the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
The 16th Street Baptist Church sits in the middle of downtown Birmingham, Alabama. During the heart of the Civil Rights movement, when Birmingham was known across the nation as “Bombingham,” marchers and protesters would assemble at the 16th Street Baptist Church, then walk across the street to Kelly Ingram Park, where they demonstrated against segregated [...]
What’s the Big Deal About Interfaith Marriage?
I attended the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia. I was amazed by the preponderance of sacred fashion statements (the hats!), the number of New Age practitioners from the North American West Coast, and the ubiquity of the phrase “interfaith dialogue.” As former chair of the Union Theological Seminary Interfaith Caucus, a [...]
Uniting the Transcendent and Immanent: A Jewish Way of Saying “Amen” in an Uncomfortable and Challenging Prayer Space
A couple of months ago, I was recording a video for my community when I heard a sudden knock on my office window. Startled, I quickly finished the recording and went to the nearby door to see who had knocked. As I opened the door, I encountered an energetic and fast talking woman who apologized [...]
Theology of the Body, Episode 2: The Gendering of Voices in a Mormon Sunday Choir
Like the master-signifier of reality, the hanging portrait of a prophet hovered in the air of a vacated instruction room, smiling with relief over a group of the elect youth of God’s Zion who had been selected by heavenly beings in heavenly places to live in the latter days of human history and to call [...]
How Do You #Keep the Sabbath?
–”The Pharisees said, This man is not from #God, because He does not keep the #Sabbath” -#John 9:16 It was a Sunday morning in April when a man named Tagg uploaded a picture of his father onto Twitter. “Busted!” the tweet read. “#mitt2012 sneaking a peek at twitter [sic] during Sunday school.” The attached image displayed a [...]
Why Jesus’ wife matters to me
The writing prompt in this week’s digest to State of Formation scholars asked, “Does it matter that Jesus may have had a wife?” I was surprised by the strength of my own response: a gray, hard-as-nails voice that answered, It matters to me. It matters to me has been running through my head since the existence [...]
Contributing Scholars
Brandon TurnerBrandon is a 3rd year PhD candidate in Religion and Culture at Catholic University in Washington, DC and is interested in improving inter and intra religious dialogue, particularly among the many branches of Christianity. (Twitter account: @turnerbrandon)
Sai KolluruSenior, majoring in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. Founder of a Hindu organization on campus that works to practice and preserve Sanatana Dharmic principles and values with the final goal of Seva, Selfless Service, through interfaith collaboration.
Syd ShookSyd Shook is a seminarian, cultural-explorer, ESL instructor and poet. She works and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, David, and Chihuahua, Okie Doke. Follow her Twitter @sydshook.