Then & Now

Last week, ghosts, superheroes and zombies walked our neighborhoods in search of treats. But the holiday for dwelling in the possibility of the spooky is a fleeting thing. Halloween has come and gone. Yet the zombies remain. They shamble on in our popular culture all year long.

The 1853 slave narrative Twelve Years a Slave is now a major motion picture directed by Steve McQueen. The film is a faithful rendering of the life of Solomon Northup, a free African American man who is sold into chattel bondage and brutally enslaved. Northup’s life story highlights one of the little-known facets of American slavery: the dangers that free black people faced during the antebellum era, with little legal recourse if they were cheated, harmed, brutalized or even sold into slavery. Northup was eventually freed. But there were countless others whose names we cannot know.

As the debacle unfolded over the Affordable Care Act, I stumbled to find some solace amidst the storm of stupidity that seemed to defy politics and logic. And when I stumble I usually look to Reinhold Niebuhr.

Christian Mingle wants to help God help you. The dating site’s motto comes from Psalm 37: “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Christian Mingle reflects a move from broad dating pools like Match.com to niche markets of personal preferences and identities. Christian Mingle’s goal is to help singles “make new friends or to find a life-partner that shares similar values, traditions and beliefs.” My guess is that more log in for the latter.

While religious voices have long been raised to abolish the death penalty and, more recently, torture, outright prison abolitionism has largely remained confined to the Marxist, residually black nationalist circles where it first emerged in the 1960s.

Recently, Secretary of State John Kerry explained that if he could do it all over again, he would major in “comparative religion.” Were it not for a Supreme Court decision 50 years ago, this might not have even been possible.

When President Obama argued for U.S. strikes on Syria, he used a familiar trope: When, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. Yet his proposed Syria policy put him in new political territory: against the views of a majority of African Americans.

When commemorations are only read about or considered from an armchair, they are often cleansed of the visceral. Space and place are always contested, open to multiple interpretations.

If you look closely, Jesus makes an important cameo appearance in the American Film Institute’s best movie of 2012, Silver Linings Playbook. Most of our attention goes to the bipolar Pat (dreamy Bradley Cooper) and the grieving Tiffany (sultry Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence). They jog, bicker, fanatically root for the Eagles, and dance in the most eyebrow-raising of ways. But one constant amid the family chaos is a framed image of Jesus.

The closing of the doors of Exodus International earlier this summer doesn’t just signal a sea change in evangelical thinking about homosexuality. It also highlights some evangelicals’ dubious claims of adherence to immutable convictions.

Don’t be fooled by the news out of Detroit: cities are cool again. One of the big takeaways from the 2010 census was that, after a century-long love affair with suburban subdivisions, affluent Americans are jumping back on the (worldwide) urbanizing bandwagon. For a new generation of hipsters, yuppies and retirees, city living is not only aesthetically and culturally preferable. It is an essential piece of a progressive lifestyle. This sensibility springs from a degree of historical consciousness.

When Barack Obama addressed the “Trayvon Martin ruling” Friday, he did more than offer his “thought and prayers” to the family of Martin, applaud them for their “incredible grace and dignity,” and narrate a history of racial surveillance that often leaves African Americans frustrated and even afraid. The president did more than acknowledge that the democratic judicial system had done its work, urge demonstrations to be peaceful, and call for close evaluations of “stand your ground” laws. Obama took a moment where the nation was viciously debating its most cherished values through the death of a child and cast a vision for a better future through other children.

In the opening scenes of World War Z, a news montage assaults the viewer. Clips document epidemics, wolves, global warming, reality television, pundits and others forms of dangerous nature. They evoke a world in seeming decline, in which one pivotal moment could lead to the global disaster from which we might not recover. Chaos and inevitable decline set the tone for the film. But what ends us in World War Z are zombies.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s marriage decisions, debates about the effects on religious groups have dominated the religious blogosphere. “Gay marriage fight now becomes a religious liberty fight,” claims the headline of one Washington Examiner column. Behind such headlines lies a far less univocal history, and no doubt a much more complicated present reaction among religious communities. From this perspective, the fight for marriage equality has always been deeply engaged in religion.

Along with fireworks and barbecue, the fourth of July has traditionally been an occasion for speeches that blend thanksgiving for military sacrifices with some appeal to divine favor for America. Last year President Obama continued this tradition with his speech from the White House.

It begins in February. Parents scour websites in the often-competitive sport of hunting for summer camp options. The goal is to keep our children happy, occupied and perhaps even learning something during the long summer.  Summer camps are a relatively new invention, introduced in the early 20th century.