This blog will cover the actions that people, groups and even nations take in the name of religion.

In the United States and around the world, people conduct themselves in accord (or total discord!) with their religious beliefs. And those beliefs are in front of us constantly -- reflected in campaign promises, special legislation, trials over textbooks, the latest blockbuster, the latest deal on Wall Street, fantastic feats, incredible foibles and, of course, holy wars.

"Under God" will treat religion at its most broad: an adherence to a particular theory about the ultimate meaning and mechanics of the universe. Keeping that definition in mind, I will look at the ceaseless ticker tape of news and events that chronicle our sense of devotion (or absence thereof) to our religious beliefs. Daily, I will try to describe, explain, comment, celebrate, shame, and criticize our living history of living under God.

Beyond looking to the news, I will draw insight and inspiration from both experts and people I know who will serve as a regular cast of characters for this feature. From religious scholars to my ten-year old friend Jack who's wrestling with ideas of the infinite, I want these people to give you their sense of what it means to live under God.

And who am I to do this? I grew up in a fringe religious movement in the Midwest. I started practicing Transcendental Meditation when I was three years old, and my religious background is a swampy-yet-exciting mix of Hinduism, Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism and like eight other world views. All of that has left me absolutely convinced that there is no answer. But nothing makes me happier than thinking about how our beliefs about God (or no God) transform and define our lives.

I studied cultural anthropology in college with a focus on religion and later received a masters degree from the University of Chicago's Divinity School. In between and after, I've been a working journalist for such publications as the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Condé Nast Portfolio, Rolling Stone, and others (I'm currently a contributing editor at Portfolio). I've written about education, railroads, the entertainment business, pornography, celebrities, gasoline, and a bunch of other stuff. All of which is to tell you that people fascinate me, and most of all the ability of their religious beliefs to move them to do the incredible, the evil, and the enlightened.

The idea of sitting in a room alone talking about living under God sounds too much like crazy and not enough like a job, so my hope is that readers of this page will challenge my opinions and ideas. The plan is to bring in a range of voices besides my own, both religious expert and novice and lots of in betweens, and I hope that readers will consider themselves part of this community and engage passionately (if politely!) with them as well. Part of this will be readers of this blog sending in their own carefully gathered evidence of religious belief in action. Like it or loathe it, religious belief is powerful and all around you.

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 »

Last night's improbable win by the Giants seemed an answer to many a churchgoer's prayers (and rejection by others!) But in a story in Saturday's Wall Street Journal, we find out that in the lead-up to this Sunday's Super Bowl, the NFL and a number of churches have faced off over the right of houses of worship to get in on the game.

Continue »

Some things are too horrible to go uncommented upon. The potential role that mentally disabled women played in the suicide bombings in Baghdad over the weekend that the Iraqi authorities say killed nearly a hundred is one of them.

People do so many awful things daily in the name of God, I could be at this keyboard around the clock. But that would be both bad for my wrists and unfair to all that is sublime and transformative in religious faith.

Continue »

Just a quick piece of news: I have heard several reports now from people within the TM Movement confirming that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi died around noon today at his home in Vlodrop, Holland. He had been sick and was reported to be 91 years old. Last month, he officially announced that he would be stepping down from his role as leader of the Transcendental Meditation Movement, which he created a half century ago.

I wrote previously about the questions that the Maharishi's death would bring up for the TM Movement and its future.

Continue »

A lot of people adored Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the leader of the Transcendental Meditation Movement, who died yesterday. Maharishi was known as the giggling guru and he preached world peace and pure consciousness for every man.

Strangely, one of his biggest fans and followers was neo-noir film director David Lynch, who has authored films such as Blue Velvet and Lost Highway that explore something that seems more like subterranean consciousness. David runs a charity that aims to teach children TM and he has given many talks on the benefits of meditation.

I gave him a call at his production office here in Los Angeles and see what he was thinking about the day after the death of his guru.

Continue »

Little story carried on the wires of President Bush's comments that he had struggled with "addiction" to alcohol and had prevailed over his problem because of his belief in a higher power.

Now the ability of religious belief to help people stop destroying themselves is great and nothin' to sneeze at. But why is Bush talking about this now?

Continue »

Part of religion is looking for answers to the big questions. My friend Jack turned eleven in January and we recently took a walk in Hollywood's oldest cemetery, Hollywood Forever, where Valentino and Cecil B. DeMille and the like are buried. It was twilight and brisk and Jack was sort of sleepy and sort of wanted to be home playing video games but instead he was trudging through the wet grass and explaining to me how he understands God.

Continue »

I thought French president Nicolas Sarkozy couldn't make me any happier until Wednesday when he pissed off many with his announcement to the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France that faith has a place in the public sphere. He also suggested French schoolchildren should study the children who were victims of the Holocaust.

Like most people, I have a favorite person in the news. For some of you it may be Britney Spears or Warren Buffett or Condi Rice, but for me it is without a doubt Sarkozy. I read everything about him and he always manages to delight me -- marrying a supermodel, infuriating French unions, asking Bush to be best friends, telling the French to work harder. Now he wants more God in French culture?

Stop it Sarkozy, stop this wonderfulness!

Continue »

Is Obama the Messiah? People are asking these days and it's not so hard to understand why: the desperate throngs, the tears, the great awakening of a slumbering demographic. All that larger symbolism.

The emotional landscape of many American voters is calamitous of late -- frightened by our Babylonian war, unhappy with our President and depressed by the cleansing crush of the credit crunch -- so it's not surprising that the coming presidential election would take on a certain biblical coloring.

Continue »

A group that calls itself Anonymous has been putting the Church of Scientology in a world of hurt lately-with cyber mischief and costumed protests around the world -- but nobody much seems to care. Why?

In Monday's LA Times Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic magazine, says it's because most people don't consider the Church a church.

Continue »

ABC News aired a hard hitting look at the so-called battle between religion and porn last night in their "Nightline: Face-Off series," which asked the tough question: "Is America Addicted to Porn?"

Refusing to stop with the obvious answer of 'yes,' ABC set up a debate at Yale University, between two porn stars, a "porn pastor" and a recently converted former porn producer to get to the truth.

Continue »

The Oscars are on Sunday night and the nominees for Best Picture are by and large pretty great films. I've been mulling over whether that group of films say anything about where our country is at in terms of our collective sense of God, faith, chaos, destiny and all that.

Continue »

Don't take it from me, but, honestly, this was a great year for the movies. I didn't love everything rewarded during last night's Oscar telecast (did "Once" really need ALL that music?). But the movies I did love, I loved like crazy.

Continue »

Every national newspaper (that I read) ran the results of the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey done by the folks at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life yesterday. Headlines mostly highlighted the denominational and religious shifts of Americans from one faith to another, or bridging into unaffiliated territory. Is this dramatic shift in our national religious character?

For the most part, no.

Continue »

A smart lady I know, Kate Aurthur, has an excellent piece in today's LA Times about the most recent episode of Fox's new game show, "The Moment of Truth."

If you've missed this bizarre new hit, I'll summarize: contestants undergo a pre-show interview strapped to a polygraph and are then asked questions about every deep and dirty secret in their life. On the air, the contestant sits before a couch filled with loved ones, along with an audience that numbers close to 9 million, and are then asked about these questions. If they answer truthfully, money. They have the chance to make $200,000. If their answers are false--based on the pre-interview polygraph results--they get the boot with nothing.

Watch this clip first, and then let's talk.

Continue »

I love Oprah--she's beautiful and powerful, frank and human. She laughs and cries and cares about beauty and politics and me. She helps pick out books and movies and presidential candidates. But sometimes the power and reach of Oprah...well, it frightens me.

Tonight will mark a new zenith in Oprah-dom. The great one begins a series of "webinars," live online courses to discuss the spiritual teachings of her newest Oprah Book Club author, Eckhart Tolle. Tolle's book "A New Earth," was first published in 2005 but now Oprah has embraced Tolle's spiritual philosophy on creating a "shift in consciousness" and so, I imagine, will her audience of millions (my pre-registration page warns that this may be the biggest online event EVER).

Sigh. At the risk of angering my often humor-less commenters, or, worse, sounding like a cynic, I have to say that the combination of spiritual seeking and Oprah makes me grumpy. I truly believe in Oprah's mission, I really do--she's helping people free themselves from the shackles of negativity. It's all good, as they say, right?

Continue »

The squabble surrounding San Antonio televangelist John Hagee's endorsement of Republican presidential hopeful John McCain reminds me of why there should be less religion in politics -- incendiary faith is the opposite of consensus building.

Continue »

I wrote yesterday about signing up for Oprah's new "webinar"on Eckhart Tolle's book, "A New Earth." I was never able to sign on due to technical errors and I just got a note from Oprah.com about saying that "Monday night's webcast was one of the largest single online events in the history of the Internet. More than 500,000 of you simultaneously logged on to watch Oprah Winfrey and Eckhart Tolle live, resulting in 242 Gbps of information moving through the Internet. Unfortunately, some of you experienced delays in viewing the webcast."

The site's administrators said the webinar should be available on iTunes or at www.oprah.com/ondemand. Good luck in your pursuit of happiness!

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said goodbye last night in Texas. He stuck to his theme of ornate story telling with some baseball metaphor I didn't quite get, but his speech was sweet and from the heart. He said he wanted to be remembered as having given the race his best, and no matter how liberal you are you have to give that to the guy.

More significantly, Huckabee inspired a bloc of voters who saw themselves as religiously conservative but not necessarily angry, and I'm glad they've joined in this well-attended election cycle. To that end, I recommend checking out Huckabee's campaign blog. Supporters wrote in their fare-thee-wells to him last night, and it's exciting to see how many people he inspired to be a part of the political system.

Continue »

A couple of weird stories in the news in the past few days got me to thinking. One is the call by Italian researchers to dig up Galileo's remains and have his DNA tested to find the cause of his blindness and also if his sister is buried next to him. The other is the controversial paper published by an Israeli scientist who says Moses was tripping on hallucinogens when he saw the burning bush.

Both fall into the news of the weird. Both stories deal with deified historical figures -- one a Biblical prophet, the other a secular one. Both, it seems, say more about where many people see truth situated and what that truth means these days. What seems intriguing here to me is how these historical figures who've contributed to our largest sense of meaning, meaning that seems to be beyond the pale about the world, are now being held up against a sort of new next wave of truth providers -- DNA tests, paleobotany and the like.

Maybe I'm going too far, but I see both these stories as harbingers of a larger paradigm shift, where these figures who are so loaded with meaning and history are being taken down off the mantle and poked and prodded by our new meaning-givers: scientific tests.

Continue »

On Friday, the headlines out of Israel were brutal and bloody and tragic.

Eight students, from 15 to 26 years of age, were killed in a Jerusalem yeshiva by a Palestinian bus driver on Thursday evening. Nine others were wounded. The gunman was 25-years old, spoke Hebrew and had been engaged to be married. The slain students were remembered as smart and good. It was the first major attack on civilians in Jerusalem in four years.

As long as I've been reading newspapers, the news out of Israel has been horrible. Lately, things seem worse. From my breakfast table in Los Angeles, it's hard to stay on top of the bombings and the conflicts there--the violence sometimes feels like a sad incessant sound. A migraine. It's not a nice thing to say but I'm being honest because I'm guessing that I'm not alone in my numbness and confusion.

Continue »

I've long known of my power to commit wickedness against the environment.

Like most people of a certain age, I can't look at the plastic yokes of a six-pack without thinking of the strangulation of sea gulls or the deformation of turtles. Ever since elementary school ecology lessons, I've shuddered at the site of non-sorted recyclables and felt true shame when I see a light left on through the night.

Finally major organized religion is offering its services and calling all those ugly bad feelings we have a name: SIN.

Continue »

In the flood of information about Eliot Spitzer's taste for high-priced vice yesterday, all I could think of was a dead Protestant theologian: Reinhold Niebuhr. And, strange as it may sound, I bet Spitzer did, too.

Neibuhr was, after all, sort of the Grand Master when it came to human fault and the reality of sin. Below Niebuhr's image on the cover of Time magazine in 1948, the caption was succinct and brutal: "Man’s story is not a success story.”

Any student of the corrupting power of pride and ego knows Niebuhr, and thinks of him often. And as it turns out, Spitzer was such a student.

Continue »

Eliot Spitzer's predicament and resignation are viewed as well-deserved by the pro-life, traditional values crowd. Like the stock brokers on Wall Street, right-to-life blogs and religious groups opposed to abortions were happy to see Spitzer fall. Why? Spitzer's well publicized support for strengthening abortion rights.

Continue »

For most (ethical) people, the religious life is not usually a financially rewarding one.
So it's pretty sweet that a Roman Catholic priest, cosmologist, philosopher and all-around cool guy Michael Heller won the $1.6 million Templeton Prize on Wednesday. It is the largest monetary award made to individuals by a philanthropic organization and they gave it to Heller, 72, because he has spent his days "asking, and perhaps more impressively answering, questions like 'Does the universe need to have a cause?'”

Doesn't this make you so happy?

Continue »

When I first watched the YouTube videos of Barack Obama's fiery pastor, Jeremiah Wright, last week, it furthered a conviction I already had: religion in public life gets divisive.

In this election cycle presidential candidates have tried to build cohesive support among voters, and their only option when it came to their core beliefs was to acknowledge their religious faith but move away from the specifics. I saw Hillary do this in Iowa and I listened to Mitt Romney's speech on faith in December. In both, the seasoned politicians acknowledged that their faith was important to them but didn't say why.

In this tightly packaged, heavily-scripted and heavily-scrutinized world of politics, it didn't seem like there was room to be forthcoming about things like say, secret garments and impassioned prayer. But then Obama gave his speech yesterday, which dealt with both religion and race, and I was proven wrong. Totally wrong.

Continue »

The situation between Tibet and China is getting worse. In Lhasa, the traditional capital of Tibet, authorities arrested 24 suspects yesterday, accusing them of "grave crimes" following anti-Chinese riots that began late last week there.

China Human Rights Watch is urging the Chinese government to allow independent agencies to monitor the situation, citing unconfirmed reports of hundreds of arrests and the possibility, given the history, of torture. Independent reporting from the area hasn't been available because of China's lock down on information and the ban on foreign journalists.

Continue »

An old friend came to visit from New York this week and I drove him up to my favorite place in Los Angeles: the planetarium at the Griffith Park Observatory. We escaped the sunshine, leaned back and watched the feature: "Centered in the Universe." This was the third time I've watched it and I can't get over how well the movie walks gracefully down the tightrope of describing the universe in a way that is scientific, historical and cultural and yet totally open to religious belief.

Continue »

I'm down in Mexico City for a mini-vacation and to see my friend Fay Ray who is here for a month doing an art residency. Strangely, the New York Times Travel Section did a story earlier this month on visiting Mexico City during Easter so I was well-equipped with a laundry list of must-see devotional events when I got off the plane.

On Friday, we took the subway to visit the Villa de Guadalupe north west of the city center. The Virgin of Guadalupe is a beloved and pervasive saint here in Mexico. She is believed to have appeared shortly after the Spanish conquest before Aztec peasant Juan Diego. She left her unearthly imprimatur on Diego's cactus-fiber cloak, which is kept in the massive round Basilica, shaped for maximum viewing. The Guadalupe complex gets as many as 20 million visitors a year many with hopes of having their illnesses cured.

Continue »

In Mexico City this past week, I've thought over and over how it seems I'm just visiting Los Angeles-adjacent, with it's shared love of mini-marts and the same soft night breeze. Because of that familiarity, I've thought more than I usually do about how vital immigration from Latin America has been to religious identity in the United States. When I read the AP story on Sunday, which described how more than 100 foreign-born U.S. soldiers were granted citizenship only after giving their lives for this country, I felt frustrated with how ridiculous this was.

What jumped out at me in the story were the words of Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who oversaw one of these services and lobbied President Bush to change the policy, who took a stand on the issue. Mahony is the rare church leader who has agitated consistently for greater rights for illegal immigrants in the U.S.

Continue »

It goes something like this: a deserted rooftop in a Mexico City hotel at sunset. My friend Fay and I, huddled together in the wind, while below, in the park, a parade of hundreds of passers by are carrying Easter floats and flowers. Up here, we are commemorating our Easter alone, affirming our belief in rebirth and resurrection, but only to one another, and only as it pertains to our goals and ambitions for 2008.

"This is like my baptism," says Fay, staring up at the sky and sure you could dismiss her as being trite but she isn't and she means what she's saying. She will write to her mother and friends the next day in emails and tell them about the night as a moment that mattered, that changed her.

This last Sunday, while in Mexico, a country that is so ordered by institutional religion, I got to thinking that rituals and ceremonies are far from empty for the "not-religious." I thought of this when street vendors tried to sell me rosaries and folk-art crosses and I couldn't quite bring myself to collect the objects as whimsies. Despite the fact that I'm not a Christian, I can't dismiss the cross as a charming collectible or Easter Sunday as a day like any other.

Continue »

I figured it was time to check in on things Monday night over at Oprah's New Earth, the weekly web seminar (webinar!) the TV host is giving on the spiritual teachings of Eckhart Tolle.

When I logged on to live webcast, I found Oprah, Tolle and several hundred thousand people in the midst of a spiritual revival. Oprah meditated! She read a poem! She recalled childhood beatings! Something is going on over there at oprah.com and it is not to be ignored, I thought, and at that moment my screen froze and I couldn't get back on the web for 12 hours. Strange!

Continue »

Paris Hilton with her Ashton Kutcher-provided spiritual advisor. (AP)

Each Wednesday (okay, this one is a little late), we'll select an image that gives us some insight on religion in the world today. It's a complicated subject and so I figured we'd have our inaugural image be on the complicated side: behold Paris Hilton with her guru.

Earlier in March, Ms. Hilton -- heiress, reality TV and sex tape star -- spent an awkwardly conspicuous night on the town with a sagely bearded, saffron robed, "guru" who ushered Hilton to LA New Age landmark the Bodhi Tree for some reading and possible spiritual awakening. First her pre-jail time Bible reading and now this?

The Daily Mail put together a nice, pious album of the evening. And whatever you may think of Hilton, she is a savant of the symbolic and her ensemble nods to all spirituality as costume -- low rise pump, off white fishnets, headband, white lace dress, smallish purse and a serious sad look.

Of course, it was a pipe dream that Hilton was seeking divinity and, in fact, her guru turned out to be a bit actor (his MySpace page brags about his role in Pirates of the Caribbean, and includes an album of photos of him as Hilton's shaman). In the end, her actions were for Hilton's real God, the cameras. Sigh.

The scheme had been cooked up by Ashton Kutcher for his new MTV show, "Pop Fiction," which is meant to highlight the madness of the image obsessed fans and paparazzi. Genius! Hilton's lacy get-up and robed-friend underscore how pious behavior is viewed as preposterous in Hollywood these days -- at least the non-Kabbalistic, non-Scientological variety. What's more, Kutcher saw a lesson in the pseudo-spiritual prank, saying, "We're having fun, but we want to say to people, 'Can you really believe everything you read and see?"

A perfect lesson for our first signs and wonders. Next week, more.

When the government sticks its finger into private religious worlds, the results are always bizarre and often evoke bigger questions about ultimate authority. The story of this weekend's raid of a polygamist Mormon sect's ranch in West Texas are worth watching and thinking about.

By last night, more than 200 women and children had been taken away on buses from the compound in Eldorado called "Yearning for Zion," where close to 600 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) have encamped for the last few years. The evacuation was peaceful -- putting to rest fears by locals of "another Waco," where a 1993 FBI/ATF seige of the Branch Davidian sect's compound ended with 82 deaths.

It remains to be seen whether the raid will be remembered as another Short Creek, the 1953 government action in Southern Utah/Northern Arizona that ended up bolstering the power of FLDS leaders like Warren Jeffs, who used their community's fear of the outside world to control them.

Continue »

Buddhist monks stage a protest calling for Tibet's independence in Gansu, China, April 9, 2008. (Kwon Young-suck - AP)

In the theater of global public opinion, you can really do no worse than having young Buddhist monks protest your actions. You can call them satanic or terrorists or murderers or whatever you want but these Buddhists have been stealthily crafting this image of themselves as the ultimate in righteousness for thousands of years.

Chinese officials, struggling against this rising tide of discontent, hit back with statements such as one made in late March that the Dalai Lama was "a wolf in monk's clothing. A devil," he said, "with a face of a human but the heart of a beast."

Continue »

Last week Obama said he thinks he's had trouble winning over working class voters in part because they have become frustrated wi