Defining Our Humanity
If we are honest about our own emotions, we are likely weeping the tears of Aristotle’s catharsis, which are worth next to nothing if, through their shedding, they—and we—effect no change. By Kit Dodgson
Category: Winter/Spring 2013
Doubting Thomas, Restaged
An insightful reading of “the Thomas of the text” as Jesus’s “twin” suggests that the cult film Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a faithful retelling of the Gospel narrative. By Charles M. Stang
Toward an American Public Theology
An excerpt from Ronald Thiemann’s 1987 “Toward an American Public Theology.”
Two Poems by Gerard Beirne
“Vision of the Fear of Death” and “The Song of the Daysbird” by Gerard Beirne
Jews, Evangelicals: Analyzing the Vote
Any hoped-for “Jewish–evangelical alliance” in the 2012 election proved elusive. By Mark I. Pinsky
Visiting the Void
Many recovery workers periodically return to Ground Zero as a way of reconnecting with the values they experienced there. By Kate Yanina DeConinck
Right-Brain Religion, Left-Brain Science
A review of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning. By Daniel Goodman
The Road of Excess
Most young people who party want to live moments of communion, intensity, and freedom, and to carry these moments into the future. By Sébastien Tutenges
Risky Invocations?
State-sanctioned religious beliefs and activities will only bring conflict in a religiously diverse United States. By Anthony J. Minna
Exposing the Fine Lines
A review of Susie Linfield’s The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence. By Chris Herlinger
Nurturing Jewish Philanthropy
Recent financial scandals should redirect us to time-honored Jewish practices of philanthropy. By Robert Israel
Cancer Rites and the Remission Society
50/50 captures the rites and rituals of cancer patients. By Paul Stoller
Saying Grace
Poetry by Liz Waldner
The Fog of Religious Conflict
Eleven reflections on religious and ethnic conflict, drawing on the author’s formative experience living through the Troubles in Northern Ireland. By David N. Hempton
Exotic Ordinary
Action and passion coexist in this portrait of one spirit medium in Madagascar, evoking complex philosophical questions. By Michael Lambek
The Ethics of Representing Disaster
Marta’s story from the Talmud stands within a long history of representing crisis through womanhood, in which visual and textual images of women’s bodies become icons of disaster. By Julia Watts Belser
We Lost Our Everything
Poetry by Andrea Cohen
What Broken Souls Can Teach
A review of Julia Lieblich and Esad Boškailo’s Wounded I Am More Awake: Finding Meaning after Terror. By Will Joyner
Dying Well
We need to find better words and metaphors to cope with the reality of death. By Tamara Mann
