This week all anyone can think about is the New Hampshire primary. I remember long ago, like two weeks, when all anyone could think about was the Iowa caucus. I was home for the holidays way back then and in between five hour naps on my mom’s couch, I made a few trips to go see candidates stump in the sticks. One afternoon, after one such nap, I drove through the snow and 45-miles of nothingness to see Hillary speak in Donnelson, population 800.

Continue »

Last weekend's big Iraq news was that the largely-Shiite Iraqi Parliament voted, after much delay, for U.S. backed legislation that will allow low-ranking, Sunni, former Baath party members to reclaim their jobs. Monday, the Los Angeles Times wrote that the U.S. military considers Sunnis who provide security at the neighborhood level -- the so-called Concerned Local Citizens groups -- to be central to U.S. military strategy.

For years it has seemed likely that Iraq could erupt/was erupting into a civil war, with Islam's two largest sects locked in bitter battle for power and religious hegemony. But both the new legislation and the military's focus on the Concerned Local Citizen groups perhaps offer a ray of hope against the shadowy fears of a religious war. But it's just a ray, and it begets a few big questions.

Continue »

Steven Pinker's New York Times magazine piece on morality, The Moral Instinct, drips with disdain for cultural and historical traditions of morality in favor of an ominous sounding "science of moral sense." I read it front to back, slammed it shut and decided to call Natalie Carnes, a PhD student of theology and ethics at Duke and my in-house expert on matters of morality.

Natalie is a friend from Divinity school, and wicked smart. More important, she's one of the most exquisitely moral people I know -- someone who actually struggles with the ethical implications of buying a $3,000 white satiny wedding dress or opting to wear something that's already in her closet.

I've got a feeling about where she'll come down on the wedding day purchase. Meanwhile, she's definitely not buying Pinker's notion that understanding the mechanics of how our brains view the world in moral terms offers useful guidance on the choices we should or do make. Here's a slightly redacted (I took out the slow parts) transcript our chat:

Me: Sooo, what’d you think of the article?

Continue »

Floating brains? Freaky observers? Reincarnation?

A few of the mind-blowing options being bandied about by today's preeminent experts on the quantitative study of the universe on what exactly might be going on with existence.

Out of all the newsprint that comes into my home each week, my favorite single section is Science Times. Article's like this Tuesday's "Big Brain Theory: Have Cosmologists Lost Theirs?" -- on the debates by cosmologists as they "try to square the predictions of their cherished theories with their convictions that we and the universe are real" -- are the reason why.

While I've seen evidence to the contrary, I like to imagine that the reporters at Science Times work in a kind of crystal tower far from the New York Times newsroom where, surrounded by peregrine falcons and graphing calculators, they casually interrogate the great scientists of the world on mind blowing research weekly. I'm surprised the reality TV people haven't hunted them down yet.

Continue »

I sat down at my desk tonight and, randomly, my computer cued up the Beatles song Sexy Sadie. Then I got an email from John Hagelin, the oft-disappointed candidate for the Transcendental Meditation Movement's Natural Law Party. I'm not superstitious, but these seemed signs that I should, nay, must, bore you readers with some personal notes on my own religious state this week.

I've felt a bit off since I got an email from a childhood friend, with news that TM Movement founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was gravely ill and had given his official farewell to the movement he's led for 60 years.

"I think I have done whatever can be done," he said in his speech last Saturday. According to Maharishi's spokesperson, he had a few delicate days but is doing better.

Continue »

I just wanted to say thank you to all of those who posted here and also wrote me personally about your thoughts on my post "Maharishi's Mortality." While comments here really have run the gamut, I do so appreciate those of you who have shared your own experiences and confusion about this question that is central to so many new religious movements. Please keep reading and writing in.

I've always thought that in the lists of American fixations, fringe religious movements and movie stars rank high. Both are phenomena that exist in other parts of the world, but that we have really cornered the market on. We Americans are often Roman and so it makes sense that our movie stars would be like deities, and our religious figures like movie stars.

Which is why Tom Cruise and his zealous embrace of Scientology have become such a persistently tasty morsel. Cruise, one of the world's biggest movie stars, has become a zealous spokesman for his church, a rise to power that Kim Christensen and I wrote about in an in-depth piece for the LA Times a few years ago.

Most recently, he's demonstrated his skill at preaching in a recruitment video. Though some may laugh at his performance, I actually found it to be oddly effective, combining Cruise's movie star appeal with an obvious dedication to his cause.

So far, 2008 has had much to offer of Cruise, starting with the release of Andrew Morton’s Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography, (reviewed here) which wonders, among other things, if Cruise’s baby was conceived using Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's frozen sperm.

Continue »

For those who aren’t reading this column religiously, yesterday’s post discussed Tom Cruise’s zealous public witnessing for his Church of Scientology. I mentioned that America’s fascination with fringe religious movements and movie stars seem to be equally rabid. Why is that?

America has always been fertile ground for new religious movements, in part because of the first amendment’s barring the establishment of any one faith. This may be a stretch, but I put part of the blame for our celebrity-addiction on the second part of the first amendment, which guarantees a free press -- though I'd argue that the media is an enabler of our desires, not a creator.

So, is it just that we like to watch passion and drama writ large? Is it that both upstart preachers and celebrities have a knack for projecting our desires and fears and assumptions on a big screen? I’m looking for a better word, but is it just that
David Koresh and Angelina Jolie are both well, kind of freaky and who doesn’t like to watch a freak? (Before you start drafting me hate mail, think about it.)

Continue »

I had breakfast last Friday with Reza Aslan, an Iranian-American scholar and author of "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam." His book is an illuminating look at Islamic history and culture and Reza has become the person the media turn to when seeking to understand the nuances of the Muslim world in a wider historical context.

We ate at a Hollywood diner, with Fred Savage from the Wonder Years sitting behind us, the Pixies blaring on the jukebox and talked about the significance of Ashura, the Shia Muslim holiday that was to take place the next day. I wondered if Bush's recent trip to the Middle East and the ongoing tensions in Iran would affect the celebration of Shia identity.

Continue »

Here's a little Friday fun for Under God: State Rep. Douglas Bruce of Colorado had his eyes closed on the morning of his January 14 swearing in, participating in spiritual communion with God, when he lifted his foot and kicked at Javier Manzano, a photographer from the Rocky Mountain News, who was crouched before him.

Yesterday, Bruce almost certainly got more than he was praying for when the Colorado House voted 64 - 1 voted to censure him for the kick and his failure to apologize -- the first censure in the state legislature's 131-year history.

After the prayer-turned-kick, Bruce was unapologetic, telling a local TV station that Manzano deserved his prayerful wrath:

Continue »

Gordon B. Hinckley died Sunday at the age of 97. He spent nearly a half-century leading the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and every American should read Hinckley's obituary today (here's the Salt Lake Tribune's) to get a sense of the history of this fast-growing, totally unique, American-born religion and the changes it went through under Hinckley's superintendence.

Another possible reason to read it? Make Mitt Romney sad.

Hinckley's death wasn't unexpected -- he'd been unwell and he was old. Still, I can't help thinking that on a purely political level, it's particularly untimely for Romney in the run-up to Super Tuesday.

Given Romney's mention of Mormonism only once in his much anticipated "Faith in America" speech last month, I'm guessing the guy really would rather not dwell on his association with the LDS. Now, the public eye will likely be gazing intently upon the Mormon Church this week, as obituaries and news coverage of this long-time leader detail the Church's rapid global rise, untidy history and, of course, its somewhat mysterious rituals.

Continue »

President Bush gave his final State of the Union address last night. He asked for $300 million for scholarships for inner-city students to attend private schools but mostly the President focused little time on "the business of our nation here at home," devoting the majority of his words to what will be his legacy in Iraq.

Listening to all this talk of war and taxes, I wondered what became of the faith-based initiatives and socially ideological programs that Bush had trumpeted in years past.

Continue »

Bodies are often the battleground for religious belief. Debates over conception and abortion, for example, are in part so fraught because they pit the privacy of our physical bodies against ideologies and religous beliefs.

While we don't hear about it as much, circumcision also pits the physical against the ideological and I can't think of a more tragic example than a story coming out of Oregon.

Last week, the Oregon State Supreme Court ruled that a divorced couple's rancorous argument over whether to circumcise their 12-year-old son couldn't be resolved without first deciding what the boy wants. The Court sent the case back to a trial judge to determine whether a recent convert to Judaism should be able to circumcise his son despite the wishes of his wife, a member of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Continue »

I was talking to a reporter for the Religion News Service today and he made a complaint that every journalist covering religion I know has made: that they rarely are able to write about the thousands of new religious movements that made them want to cover religion in the first place. Religion reporters must write constantly about the crimes of the Catholics and the policies of the Episcopalians and neglect meanwhile the wild quilt of small faith organizations that envelop this country.

After I hung up the phone, I decided that from time to time I would write here about these movements (they used to be called cults but no more).

First one in the spotlight? I AM!

Continue »