Last week, I scrolled through my feed and saw something that made me do a double-take: “Supreme Court to weigh approval for the U.S.’ first publicly funded religious charter school.” On the surface, it’s another legal headline. But peel back the layers, and we’re knee-deep in the culture war over ...
A few years into Donald Trump’s presidency, news clips began circulating of evangelical pastors describing his administration in apocalyptic language—anointing Trump as God’s chosen instrument, waging “spiritual warfare” against dark, demonic forces aligned with liberal policies. Meanwhile, more moderate or progressive pastors denounced such rhetoric, warning it politicized the pulpit ...
A few years back, headlines blared about a group calling itself the Satanic Temple petitioning to install a Baphomet statue on public grounds, right next to a Ten Commandments monument. The images—an androgynous goat-headed figure flanked by two adoring children—triggered outrage among Christian conservatives but also piqued the public’s curiosity: ...
A few years ago, I scrolled past a meme on Facebook showing a saintly figure—except it was Donald Trump’s face, bathed in divine light, with bold text declaring him the savior against hidden evils. Intrigued, I dug deeper and found an entire realm of online content linking Trump to a ...
In mid-2020, when COVID-19 vaccines first became a reality, I remember a cousin sharing a Facebook post that claimed the vaccine was “the mark of the beast.” The comments section lit up with a mix of prayers, conspiracy theories, and all-caps accusations that Big Pharma was playing God. At the ...
A few years ago, a friend of mine hopped on a plane to join a massive environmental protest in London. When she returned, she described standing shoulder to shoulder with thousands of strangers who marched, chanted, and held signs demanding action against climate change. What struck her most, she said, ...
It's been years since I stopped obsessing about religious history and started writing young adult fiction instead, but a book came across my desk today that caught my interest. It's called Rise of Little Horn, and it's about whether Donald Trump is the antichrist. I actually think the author's ominous one-page website ...
I started planning this book, which became my PhD Thesis, about 5 years ago. It didn't turn out to be exactly what I expected - it's a mashup of Paradise Lost scholarship and a comparative history of the influence Milton's Satan had on politics, art, literature, revolution and social progress over ...
I've seen Les Miserables several times. The music has always been stirring, but I've never been able to bond with the characters as much as I did tonight, when watching the new Hollywood production, which involves closeup shots of the painful, anguished looks on the faces of Hollywood Superstars like........... There ...