oprah winfrey

When they read Elie Wiesel’s Night, my Bible-belt students are regularly caught up short. They are flummoxed by the events about which Wiesel wrote; by the very fact that the Holocaust took place. But…

In his latest the Times’ conservative Wunderkind Ross Douthat attempts to explain the current crisis as the result of our nation’s departure from orthodoxy. An honest look at the history of orthodoxy and he might see a past rife with the sin and brutality, enforced less by faith than by coercion.

A participant at a holistic spa was, it turns out, “cooked to death.” Instead of another wave of panic, maybe we need to rethink our categories.

The week in religion…

Paul Simon, Rev. J. M. Gates, and the meaning of Christmas.

What message do we send when we don’t prosecute torture?

if you are a true devotee, you can follow Gilbert’s steps to to Italy, India, and Indonesia—as a solo pilgrim, as some have done, or as a member of a tour costing a cool $19,795. Or, alternatively, you could do what seems just as rewarding: savage the movie and book on the Internet.

While Tiger Woods’ public apology offers us the chance to talk about rituals of confession and repentance, we must not forget to ask who this mythical “public” is that we hear so much about.

Tiger Woods has admitted being serially unfaithful to his wife. What does this have to do with religion? Try the themes of transgression, confession, and the institution of marriage.

The Religious Right’s wildly popular video attack on Oprah’s “dangerous” teachings may not be as far off base as it first appears.