Category: Popular Culture
Walt Disney’s Theology of Hope, pt. 2
Read Part I here. I truly believe Walt Disney was one of the great visionaries of the American landscape. I would locate him in a rather small handful of great minds that include Thomas Jefferson, Ben... Read More
Holiday of Horrors: Halloween, Hate, and the (Dis)Honoring of Tradition
I used to love Halloween. As a child, I adored the dressing up as my favorite super heroine, rock star, animal, or – when I got a little older and fancier – donning some nice, natural looking fang... Read More
“Just Tell Our Story” — Dispatch from Palestine
We met Shirim at her family’s olive grove plot. It falls just outside the Betar Illit settlement. More accurately, it falls on the entire hill but the settlement imposed itself right on top of the f... Read More
Walt Disney’s Theology of Hope, pt. 1
He had an intensely religious youth. He’d been brought up in a strictly regimented church atmosphere. His father was a deacon at one time. [Knowing this] I can understand why he had such a free atti... Read More
An Improvised Family: Yom Kippur with Rome’s Progressive Jews
Normally people do not go to Rome to refrain from eating. But it was Yom Kippur, and I was on my way to afternoon services at Beth Hillel, Rome’s new progressive Jewish community. My long walk to th... Read More
Creating Single (M)Otherhood: The Problem of Our “Morality” and How Single Mothers Embody the Ethics We Need
A recent article called “4 Ways I Knew Ray Rice Was Raised by a Single Mother” features a misogynistic enumeration of the football player’s flaws attributed to being raised by a single mom. Thes... Read More
Beyond ‘Us and Them’: Taking Interfaith Dialogue Outside The Ivory Tower
Full disclosure: it was not my intention to find inspiration for this piece via Ben Affleck. That said, when the actor delivered an impassioned argument (including some explicit language) refuting Bil... Read More
We Are Not Left Behind
Between Son of God, Noah and Exodus: Gods and Kings, and the upcoming film Mary, the Bible has been all over Hollywood lately. These stories have everything: love, betrayal, sacrifice, intrigue, war, ... Read More