Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4577 )

• Revelations

  

  Sex. Religion. Death. One of these things is not like the others, if Sesame Street taught me anything. But in this case, the three actually are of a piece. Read more

  Posted on 23 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Duck, Dynasty

  

  The Fundamentalist mouth has no filter. I’m a bit surprised by the furor raised by Phil Robertson’s comments about race and sexuality. Did A&E; not realize... Read more

  Posted on 22 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Exegeting for Peanuts

  

  Peanuts, the cartoon, is about as pure as the Bible itself. Like the Bible it is included in ritual, as in the annual viewing of A Charlie Brown Christmas in ou... Read more

  Posted on 21 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Manuscript Madness

  

  A friend recently pointed me to a story of a “new” manuscript, recently discovered, that portrays Jesus predicting the advent of Mohammad. The article on sott. Read more

  Posted on 20 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Piece on Earth

  

  The New York Times recently ran a story about the academic boycott of Israel by the American Studies Association. For those unfamiliar with the ways of... Read more

  Posted on 19 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Fears of a Clown

  

  A few weeks back, over on EsoterX, I was reading about circus oddities. Perceptive as always, EsoterX notes that the carnival or circus used to be disturbing. Read more

  Posted on 18 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Pope of Deliverance

  

  It’s the Time of year. The time of year Time chooses a person of the year. Not for the first time in recent memory, a religious figure has been chosen. Read more

  Posted on 17 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• White Christmas Revisited

  

  In the light of yesterday’s post, I’d like to tip my metaphorical hat to Brian Regal of Kean University for a piece he wrote in the New Jersey Star-Ledger. Read more

  Posted on 16 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Won’t Someone Think of the Gods?

  

  The annual holiday tradition of fighting over peace on earth has begun. It’s difficult to attribute blame since the “Keep Christ in Christmas” crowd do have a... Read more

  Posted on 15 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Not Knowing

  

  Begin with a basic premise: we cannot know what a creature without language thinks. Add in the thoughtful anxieties of a post-domestic writer who knows about... Read more

  Posted on 14 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Eating Your Prophets

  

  Ezekiel was an odd character, even for a prophet. He’s become a kind of patron saint to ancient astronaut theorists, and his name in fiction often denotes... Read more

  Posted on 13 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Sweet Something

  

  As an observer of religion who always struggles to get published, I found a companion soul in Jeff Sharlet’s Sweet Heaven When I Die: Faith, Faithlessness, and... Read more

  Posted on 12 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Importance of Being Published

  

  The crowd over at The Atlantic Monthly magazine are a formidable lot. Even with a Ph.D. and a modicum of writing ability, I’ve been frightened off from ever... Read more

  Posted on 11 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Almost Human?

  

  Last week the New York Times ran a story on the efforts of the Nonhuman Rights Project to have chimpanzees declared “legal persons. Read more

  Posted on 10 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Making a Monster

  

  I was maybe six or seven when Frankenstein’s monster charged us. My mother, brothers, and I were part of a small crowd at Niagara Falls, where we had gone to... Read more

  Posted on 09 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Help from Above

  

  Frisbee, like Kleenex and Band-Aid, is a brand name that has become generic. Since at least the time of ancient Greece people have been fascinated with flying... Read more

  Posted on 08 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Deep Religion

  

  Bosnia-Herzegovina is a nation well acquainted with disruption. The tangled history of the Balkans and the misplaced zealotry of political machinery has left... Read more

  Posted on 07 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Appreciate Your Job

  

  At a gathering of friends recently, a game of trivia broke out. Well, it was actually planned because we were not using the cards and pie wedges that we grew... Read more

  Posted on 06 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Poe Knows

  

  A recent trip to Baltimore prompted me to read Benjamin F. Fisher’s The Cambridge Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe. Well, that and the fact that I had purchased... Read more

  Posted on 05 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Sunday Best

  

  When my rural, northwestern Pennsylvania shows up in the news, I pay attention. An Associated Press story recently appeared concerning Rev. Chris Terbush of... Read more

  Posted on 04 December 2013 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY