This is a collection of my recent essays, journalism, and interviews. I am always eager for reactions and critique, so please take advantage of the discussions of them on The Row Boat. See, additionally, my interviews with academics and activists for the Social Science Research Council on a separate page.

Better Science Through God?
Religion Dispatches, July 20, 2010
A New ‘Protscience’ polemic aims to tell readers how to believe in science.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

In Defense of the Memory Theater
Open Letters Monthly, July 2010
A new movie, in blockbuster style, tells the story of Hypatia, the last queen of Greek philosophy.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Pagan Martyrs, Murderous Monks
Religion Dispatches, June 4, 2010
A new movie, in blockbuster style, tells the story of Hypatia, the last queen of Greek philosophy.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

God, Science and Philanthropy
The Nation, June 3, 2010 (June 21 print issue)
The politics of Big Questions at the John Templeton Foundation.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Captive Meditation
Tricycle, Summer 2010
Caleb Smith’s The Prison and the American Imagination explores the literature of confinement.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Emblems of Belief
Bloggingheads.tv, April 19, 2010
A conversation with Richard Amesbury about religion in human rights and the politics of New Atheism.
[ link | discussion ]

A Carefully-Crafted F**k You
Guernica, March 2010
Judith Butler, in an interview about war, nonviolence, and the uses of philosophy.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Atheist with a Soul
The American Prospect, February 26, 2010
36 Arguments for the Existence of God shows there is something to be gained by delving into the rudiments and accoutrements of religion even if you think they’re basically bogus.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The War at Home
The Point, Winter 2010
A childhood’s love for warfare and the architecture of nonviolence.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Theology for Atheists
The Guardian, January 4, 2010
Could some of the most exciting theology being done today be coming from atheists?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

What Hipsters Can Learn From Hasids About the Bedford Bike Lane
The Huffington Post, December 28, 2009
If cyclists had been more courteous in Hasidic Williamsburg, would there still be a bike lane there?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Hipsters v. Hasidim Over Brooklyn Bike Lane
Religion Dispatches, December 28, 2009
Did Williamsburg’s Hasidic community have Mayor Bloomberg close a major bike lane simply because they were offended by the immodestly clothed hipsters biking through their neighborhood?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Lying about Santa: The Irrelevance of Proof to the Holiday Spirit
Religion Dispatches, December 18, 2009
A serious philosophical lecture on the origin and meaning of Santa Claus is interrupted by the tinkling of bells, jovial laughter, and the mysterious delivery of a case of beer.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

You Broke It, You Bought It
Obit, November 30, 2009
Why is the end of the world such a big deal?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Gospel of Contradiction
Religion Dispatches, November 9, 2009
Bestselling writer Mary Gordon re-reads the Gospels, trying to figure out why fundamentalist readings of scripture have come to dominate the understanding of religion in this country.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Divine Wilderness
Triple Canopy, November 5, 2009
From Thomas Aquinas and John the Baptist to cellular automata and intelligent design: How God taught us planning, and where we went wrong.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Life And Death Of The Death Of God
Obit, November 5, 2009
Does that mean He’s alive again?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Beautiful Dreamers
Religion Dispatches, November 5, 2009
Peter Rodger traveled through twenty-three countries in three years asking the same question to everyone he met, and filming, gorgeously, the results.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Reverend Billy For Mayor; Is He For Real? / The Calling of Reverend Billy
Religion Dispatches and Killing the Buddha, October 28, 2009
Why in tarnation is a performance artist running for mayor of New York City?
[ article | video | article pdf | discussion ]

Sentimental Repression
Killing the Buddha, October 18, 2009
“I say this as so much an enemy of capitalized Marriage as the next guy: let folks marry, for goodness sake.”
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Repentance on Wall Street?
Religion Dispatches, October 28, 2009
Is there something about civil religion in the US that gives those responsible a pass?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Could God Die Again?
The Guardian, October 4, 2009
Death of God theology was a 1960s phenomenon that casts light on the narrowness of the current debate.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Warm Gun
The New York Times, September 30, 2009
He’s a pacifist. So where’s he going with that gun in his hand?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Scenes of Destruction
The Saint Ann’s Review, Fall 2009
Into the world of a boy gravitationally attracted to the shapes and forms of violence.

A Solemn Game
The New York Times, September 11, 2009
Planning the next move on the day that would define my generation.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Recession Is Dangerously Good for the Arms Business
The Huffington Post, September 7, 2009
In the present recession, market forces threaten to throw even more of the weight of American industry (such as it remains) into the war business.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Self-Thinking Thought
The New York Times, August 23, 2009
Why did discovering the ontological proof make Anselm so darn happy?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Blackwater’s Free-Market Crusade
Religion Dispatches, August 19, 2009
What Blackwater’s founder Erik Prince can teach us about freedom.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Proof Industry
The Guardian, August 18, 2009
When modern-day debaters on belief use ancient proofs in their arguments, it’s often to make a point they weren’t meant to serve.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Does War Make Sense? Science and Religion on the Battlefield
Religion Dispatches, July 23, 2009
From thermodynamic war, to cybernetic battle, to the emergence of the “chaoplexic,” a new book by Antoine Bousquet explains what war means in the modern era.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The What of God?
Killing the Buddha, July 6, 2009
A chat with Robert Wright on his new monster, The Evolution of God.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Pluralistic Universe
Search, July-August 2009
Science has a handle on the age of the universe. Now “multiverse” theorists are asking a vexing question: Which one?
[ link | pdf ]

Have Faith in Atheists
The Guardian, June 21, 2009
Those who discriminate againsts non-believers should know that atheists are healthy, intelligent and well adjusted.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Economy’s Fortune Teller
Vice, June 16, 2009
Turkish creationist Harun Yahya tries his hand at economic analysis.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Undercover at Falwell’s Liberty University, Finding Common Ground
Religion Dispatches, June 4, 2009
Brown sophomore Kevin Roose, an Ivy-League heathen, infiltrated the nation’s holiest university and emerged a changed man—not committed to conservative Christianity, but to finding a new language for reconciliation.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Angels & Demons: America’s Preeminent Pop Theologian Takes on Religion and Science
Religion Dispatches, May 28, 2009
The prequel to Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, features a “theo-physicist” on a mission to save the Catholic church from itself and perhaps the first action-movie villain driven to his diabolical acts by an addiction to intelligent design theory. Why are Americans so attracted to metaphysical thrills?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Full Armor of God
Killing the Buddha, May 25, 2009
Donald Rumsfeld took the LORD’s name in vain.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Original Peaceniks
Commonweal, May 22, 2009
In his new history of Christian nonviolence from World War I to Vietnam, Joseph Kip Kosek asks what this movement has offered American democracy, and how much of the offer has been accepted.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Defense Department Gospel and America’s Desert Crusade
Religion Dispatches, May 20, 2009
Bush-era intelligence briefings featured cover pages subtitled with decontextualized and misunderstood scripture in deference to the piety of the administration.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Star Trek: Politics Anti-Matters
Religion Dispatches, May 14, 2009
But the new Star Trek movie takes us back in time, to an age when political divisions were in stark black and white.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Teachings of Carl
Vice, May 12, 2009
An invitation to the world and ideas of Carl Johnson.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Reclaiming Religion
The American Prospect, April 30, 2009
Two new books respond to the anti-religion screeds of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. But are attempts to reclaim Christianity for humanism mere wishful thinking?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Beyond Belief
The Boston Globe, April 26, 2008
Research on religion goes after a new target: the secular.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Tweets of the Christ
Religion Dispatches, April 12, 2009
On Good Friday, New York’s Trinity Church reenacted the Passion Play via Twitter, the latest social-networking sensation.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Evolving Allah
Search, March-April 2009
Will Harun Yahya succeed in stirring up the Muslim world against evolution?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Multiverse Problem
Seed, March 30, 2009
Is theoretical physics becoming the next battleground in the culture wars? Not according to some theologians and scientists.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Pennsylvania Avenue Circus
The Huffington Post, March 26, 2009
Some days, the one-block stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Lafayette Park puts the Kennedy Center to shame.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Seeing What They Wanna See: Religion Surveys Reflect Surveyors
Religion Dispatches, March 17, 2009
Religion surveys have become a battleground for the American religious marketplace—and a magnet for big money.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Five Things We Can Learn From Creationists
Religion Dispatches, February 12, 2009
On the occasion of Darwin’s birthday, a toast to the enduring spirit of “the other side” of the Pandora’s Box opened by his remarkable insight.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Technology and Tradition: Carlson’s Indiscrete Image
Religion Dispatches, February 9, 2009
A philosopher connects the dots between mysticism and modernity, arguing that technology — human invention — is not in opposition to an idealized state of nature, but is part of an ever-evolving created world.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

New York, Calling Farm Animals
The Brooklyn Rail, February 2009
Overlooking the concrete skyline from a Tribeca penthouse one late afternoon in January, a new war was declared on the practice of factory farming.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Can Islam Save the Economy?
Religion Dispatches, January 26, 2009
Islamic law prohibits the very financial instruments that have caused the global recession. Can it point the way toward a sounder economy for the future?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Nonviolence: Between Our Safety And Our Ideals
Religion Dispatches, January 21, 2009
Nonviolent resistance movements were part of the 20th century’s eternal contribution to human history; can those ideals be sustained and reinvigorated for a new era?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Surfing the Satellite
The Smart Set, January 5, 2009
How Jordanian TV is a window to the world’s soul.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Who Carries the Burden of Peace?
The Huffington Post, January 5, 2009
The latest Gaza fiasco reveals how we need to start talking about nonviolence in terms of powerful state actors, not just underdog resistance movements.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Harun Yahya’s Dark Arts
Seed, December 10, 2008
One-on-one with the Turkish creationist who uses bad science and bizarre art to spread his vision of a troubled world.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Het feest van pater Louis [The Feast of Father Louis]
News4All, December 10, 2008
A Dutch translation of a short essay in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Thomas Merton’s death.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Proof Enough for Me
Killing the Buddha, November 5, 2008
When the usual proofs for God don’t do the trick, sometimes you have to think up your own.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Agnostic Machinery
Seed, October 29, 2008
Bill Maher hoped to use science to paint religion as a neurological disorder, but the researchers he interviewed in his film Religulous hold a much more complex picture of why we have faith.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Far Out (Where went the ancient astronauts?)
The Smart Set, October 28, 2008
The idea that gods are aliens is back in fiction. But why’d it fade as a popular, real-live theory in the first place?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Obama Territory
Religion Dispatches, October 8, 2008
A Baptist church in Brooklyn puts its hopes in Barack Obama, but will he remember them when he comes into his kingdom?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Sarah Palin’s Big Bad Creationism
AlterNet, September 9, 2008
People are whispering that McCain’s VP pick doesn’t believe in evolution. But how much would this really affect policy?
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Dialogue in the Dark
Religion Dispatches, September 3, 2008
Review of Michael Novak’s No One Sees God, the neoconservative theologian’s effort to dialog with the New Atheists.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Despite Overwhelming Evidence, Creationists Cling to Unreality
AlterNet, July 31, 2008
Review of Lauri Lebo’s The Devil in Dover with some thoughts about moving forward in the evolution controversies. Note: in the discussion I explain my reservations about the title that the editors chose.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Rumors of God’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated
Religion Dispatches, July 16, 2008
A leading evangelical takes on the “God is dead” crowd in the flagship journal of the conservative movement, but neither theists nor atheists will win this argument until they stop misrepresenting each other and misinforming their readers.
[ link | pdf | discussion (continued) ]

Until the World Laughs with God
Religion Dispatches, July 3, 2008
Mike Myers’s latest movie, plagued by interfaith protests, bad reviews, and a poor showing at the box office, makes us ask, once again, whether religion is allowed to be funny .
[ link | pdf ]

Power Belongs to God
Religion Dispatches, June 9, 2008
A review of Jeff Sharlet’s book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.
[ link | pdf ]

What Happens to Religion When It Is Biologized?
Science & Spirit (now Search), May/June 2008
Explores the religious vitality of new efforts to explain human religiosity with cognitive science, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology.
[ link | pdf | On 3QuarksDaily ]

Apocalypse Without God
Religion Dispatches, May 8, 2008
An interview with Mark C. Taylor about his recent book, After God.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

Big Hopes for a Slow Opera: Restoring Virtue to Its Feet with the Met’s Satyagraha
The Brooklyn Rail, May 2008
Follows a group of Sanskrit students through a weekend of spiritual and political events leading up to the Metropolitan Opera’s performance of Satyagraha by Philip Glass.
[ link | pdf | discussion ]

The Biblical Circus of William Stringfellow
Religion Dispatches, March 10, 2008
Through the lens with my experiences in his books, explores the work of William Stringfellow, a theologian and lawyer who disturbs the usual assumptions.
[ link | pdf ]

Blessed and Holy Confusion:
Can a Dose of Religion Save Washington Square Park?
The Brooklyn Rail, March 2008
Revolving around a worship service and protest at Judson Memorial Church, explores the different perspectives at play in the renovation of Washington Square Park.
[ link | pdf ]