Just Say Yes: In Drugs We Trust
Gary Laderman Anyone interested in the new frontiers of American religion should pay attention to how Americans love to say yes to their drugs.
Baptismal Fonts and Brew Halls: A Conversation With “The Church Brew Works” Founder Sean Casey
Madison Tarleton Over the course of our conversation, Sean continued to ask, “what do you mean by sacred?”
David Wojnarowicz’s Christ: Symbols of Hope, Corruption, and Violence
Rembrandt at 350: Light and Shadow in the Modern World
Louis A. Ruprecht Jr. Perhaps there was a sting of jealous amazement at work here, as Rembrandt notoriously bankrupted in the 1650s and thus worked in grinding poverty for his final decade. The winning and losing of fortune: this is the topsy-turvy, boom-and-bust world of global capital.
From the Madness of Reefer to the Ecstatic Bliss of Marijuana: The Rise of Cannabis Churches
Morgan Shipley However, at the heart of THC Ministry is not a commitment to Christ, but to a foundational and sacred right to use cannabis as a means to raise consciousness, to commune with nature, and, maybe most significantly, “live with modesty, good manners, and humbleness.”
Modern Shamanism in Turkey
Murat Sahir The Republic of Turkey was a unique project of modernity. As a secular western state, the Turkish Republic embodied many contradictions, but over time Islam became the inescapable unifying factor of the multi-ethnic nation-state. Today, a clear majority of the Turkish population finds a sense of identity and community in the religion of […]
Lale to Me: Tulip to You
Alizeh Ahmad Irony abounds in that the tulip, so wrapped up in Dutch identity, belongs to a people and a set of beliefs that the Dutch seem to find repulsive in today’s political climate.
SM Podcast: Sahil Badruddin Interviews Wajahat Ali
Sahil Badruddin interviews Wajahat Ali in Sacred Matters podcast.
Muslim Women Resist: How Mona Haydar Counters Difference through Rap
Lamiae Aidi Through the lens of media as a form of pedagogy that shapes people’s identities and personas, the music video is a response to stereotypes of a subcategory of Muslim women that is represented as a problematic difference. It reminds women to voice their choice, it reiterates the same message as World Hijab Day.
An Interview with Jason Francisco, Part 1: Photographing the “Sacred” in “Alive and Destroyed”
Jason Francisco received his MFA in Photography from Stanford University in 1998 and is presently an Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Emory University. Professor Francisco’s photography spans a variety of subjects and themes, but several of his ongoing projects examine the complexities of memory and loss in Eastern Europe, particularly memory […]