Category: religion

“We’ve Got an American Jesus:” Songs Against Christian Fascism

When I came of age in the 1990s, Nirvana served as my entry point into music. I gravitated towards the Seattle sound, and when Rancid and Green Day broke through in 1994, I added the punk scene to my rotation. One band I always steered clear of , though, was Bad Religion. Seeing their logo of a cross with a line struck through it, … Read More “We’ve Got an American Jesus:” Songs Against Christian Fascism

“Worship is an experience that transforms the heart”: Songs That Bring Me to Worship

Over the past few years, my reading habits oscillate from fiction and graphic novels to history to religion and beyond. Sometimes I have a plan for what I want to read next, and sometimes a book just falls into my hands, as if out of nowhere. The latter is what happened recently when I picked up Diana Butler Bass’ Christianity for the Rest of Us: … Read More “Worship is an experience that transforms the heart”: Songs That Bring Me to Worship

“Hosanna! Save Us!”: How We Need to Think About Jesus During Easter

Note: I wrote this for Easter a couple of weeks ago. Throughout Holy Week this year, I have constantly been thinking about how we think about Jesus. I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church and whenever Palm Sunday and Easter would come around, the sermon would always focus on Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem, Judas’ betrayal, the crucifixion, and culminating with Jesus resurrection on … Read More “Hosanna! Save Us!”: How We Need to Think About Jesus During Easter

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What is Our Obligation to Others?

No matter what, I always encounter ideas and behaviors that I can’t, for the life of me, wrap my head around. During college, chemistry was the discipline I just couldn’t understand, and my inability to grasp it led me to change my major, moving me towards education, a path I never thought I’d take. It’s one thing to have trouble understanding something like chemistry, … Read More What is Our Obligation to Others?

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The Moral Majority and “X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills”

Writing about the lynching of Mark and Jill, two Black children, at the beginning of Chris Claremont and Brent Anderson’s X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, John Jennings points out the use of the word “Mutie,” a label that the Purifiers put onto the dangling bodies of the two children. Jennings writes, “the slur “MUTIE” has come to represent for many, all racial, ethnic, homophobic and … Read More The Moral Majority and “X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills”