Hallucinations are a universal feature of human experience. This doesn’t mean that everyone has hallucinated, but everyone is capable of hallucinating. If hallucinations can be managed, the effects range from enlightening to fun. If hallucinations are uncontrolled, the effects range from psychosis to terror. In most cases, expectations are the key to management [...]
Tags:absorption·charismatics·Christian·confabulation·delusions·evangelicals·hallucinations·perceptual bias·perceputal deficits·reality monitoring·shamans·Tanya Luhrmann·trance·visions
I always find it amusing when our British cousins, being a bit older and often wiser, look at the American scene and feel compelled to give us a gentle reminder or serious lecture. In this case it is a sage reminisce on the Founding Fathers, religion, and politics. The chiding was prompted by the usual [...]
Tags:American exceptionalism·Charles Darwin·Christian nation·Civil Religion·David Barton·evangelicals·founding fathers·Newt Gingrich·Republican Party·Rick Perry·Texas
Following hard on the heels of a prominent Texas pastor’s Rick Perry supporting declaration that Mormonism is a cult, James Fallows over at The Atlantic was compelled to issue his own declaration: “To be against Mitt Romney (or Jon Huntsman or Harry Reid or Orrin Hatch) because of his religion is just plain bigotry.” Not [...]
Tags:anti-Mormonism·atheism·bigot·bigotry·cult·ethnicity·evangelicals·Fawn Brodie·gender·George Bush·Harry Reid·immutable·Jacob Weisberg·James Fallows·Jon Huntsman·Joseph Smith·Mitt Romney·Mormon·Mormonism·mutable·Orrin Hatch·politics·race·religion·religious test·Rick Perry
Yesterday on NPR, Talk of the Nation host Neal Conan conducted a fascinating interview (Christians Divided Over Science of Human Origins) with Daniel Harlow, religion professor at Calvin College, and Albert Mohler, head of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The topic: Whether Genesis should be interpreted literally or metaphorically. NPR religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty [...]
Tags:Adam·Albert Mohler·Barbara Bradley Hagerty·bible·Calvin College·Christian·creationism·Daniel Harlow·DNA·evangelicals·Eve·evolution·fundamentalist·Garden of Eden·Genesis·genetics·Homo·literalism·Neal Conan·origins·progressives·Southern Baptist·theology
In the New York Times Magazine, Molley Worthen has written an interesting piece on feminism within the evangelical community. Its focus is on Priscilla Shirer, who is married with children and makes a great deal of money writing books, producing videos, and giving talks. She is, in other words, the primary breadwinner and might thus [...]
Tags:evangelicals·feminism·gender·Housewives of God·Molley Worthen·patriarchy·Priscilla Shirer·Satan
Frank Schaeffer, son of famed evangelical theologian Francis Schaeffer, connects the religious, cultural, and political knots in this spooky assessment of end times lunacy. As a former insider, his knowledge of such beliefs is considerable. There are few emotions more powerful — or easily played — than fear.
Tags:end times·evangelicals·fear·Francis Schaeffer·Frank Schaeffer·Hal Lindsey·Jerry Jenkins·Left Behind·paranoia·Pentecostals·Revelations·Tim LaHaye·victimization
Just the other day, I commented on the origin of ritual and noted that Jonathan Z. Smith sees “the thrill of coincidence” as at least a partial explanation. Before rationalists dismiss this thrill as mere superstition, Smith also notes that the same kind of coincidence resides at the heart of scholarship:
The discovery that two events, [...]
Tags:Africa·Assembly of God·Catholics·charismatics·charms·coincidence·evangelicals·exorcism·Foursquare Gospel·Geoffrey MacDonald·Glimpses of African Belief·indigenous beliefs·Johann Hari·Jonathan Z. Smith·Massachusetts·mediums·pagans·Pentecostals·possession·psychics·ritual·rituals·rosaries·saints·Salem·secret interconnection·spells·spiritual tourism·spiritualism·superstitition·The Gathering·The Masque of Africa·The Vault·transubstantiation·V.S. Naipaul·voodoo·Wicca·witchcraft
We are rapidly approaching a level of national insanity that is shocking. The Reverend Franklin Graham, influential son of famous evangelist Billy Graham, claims that religion is transmitted through gametes (otherwise known as sperm/ova) and contends this makes Obama a blood Muslim.
This is what Graham told CNN’s John King during a nationally televised interview on [...]
Tags:Barack Obama·Billy Graham·blood Jew·blood Muslim·evangelicals·fascism·Franklin Graham·fundamentalism·gametes·hysteria·Nazi Germany·Nuremberg·Nuremberg laws·ova·seed of Islam·seed of Judaism·sperm
In an odd article that attempts to situate Anne Rice’s very public proclamation that she is leaving the Catholic Church within the larger context of American Christianity, Los Angeles Times religion reporter William Lobdell makes two apparently contradictory claims:
American Christianity is not well, and there’s evidence to indicate that its condition is more critical [...]
Tags:American Christianity·Anne Rice·atheists·Catholic Church·Christian diversity·Christian God·Christian nation·Christianity in America·Christopher Hitchens·Civil Religion·Cordoba Center·evangelicals·exclusivism·Ground Zero·intolerance·Islam·Islamic center·Max Fisher·mosque·Muslim·nationalism·Pew Forum·religious diversity·religious freedom·sacred space·Stephen Merino·unaffiliated·United States·William Lobdell
Evangelicals love their demons — which they claim to see or sense in just about everything bad that happens. All it takes is some exorcism or “casting out” and all will be well.
As I have mentioned in several previous posts, one of autism’s effects is a lack of “theory of mind.” This in turn renders [...]
Tags:autism·casting out demons·demons·evangelicals·exorcism·gay·homosexuality·Pentecostals·theory of mind
