Religion

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By | January 01, 0001

SpeakEasy's heart-wrenching Next Fall

Revelations
It's a story you've heard before: a young gay man, raised by Bible-thumping Southern parents who would disown him if he were to come out, moves to New York City.
By MADDY MYERS | October 05, 2011

Review: Machine Gun Preacher

White-savior storyline
Jesus does funny things to people: one day you're sitting on a toilet shooting heroin; the next you're building an orphanage in war-torn southern Sudan.
By ANN LEWINSON | September 27, 2011

Happy Rosh Hashanah!

Toontime
A (sort of) heartwarming story of a Jew and a Muslim.
By DAVID KISH | September 28, 2011

Review: Higher Ground

Farmiga's directorial debut
True to the film's title, Vera Farmiga tries to elevate the bitter dialogue between secularism and fundamentalism to higher ground, regarding both sides with compassion and clarity.
By PETER KEOUGH | September 06, 2011

Immortalizing Irene: dressed up to clean up, tales of survival, and blowhards

Paging Babe the Blue Ox
Phillipe had to endure Irene at Casa Diablo South in Newport. No problems at all, save for a titanic poplar limb, whose size had already led P&J to dub it "Johnny Wadd," falling all the way across the circular driveway and nearly taking down the power lines.
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | August 31, 2011

In his new graphic novel, Craig Thompson wins an argument with God

Illuminated manuscript
This book is a gorgeous object; to make it, Thompson apparently covered himself in honey and rolled around in a thousand years of Arabic calligraphy and Islamic art, and the result is breathtaking — the amount of ink expended on one resplendent panel after another, not to mention the virtuoso draftsmanship, speaks of hundreds of hours of hard work.
By S.I. ROSENBAUM | August 31, 2011

My misbegotten creative career

Still waiting for Slugot; fan feedback; Gatorgate
Vo Dilanduhs know R.J. Heim, the veteran Channel 10 meteorologist and news reporter, as a charismatic and engaging fellow but, primarily, as a local weatherman.
By RUDY CHEEKS | August 03, 2011

God's country

Thomas Frank goes to the heartland
We live in Massachusetts, with troubles of our own. So why should we care about What's the Matter with Kansas? , the title of Thomas Frank's new book?
By CATHERINE TUMBER | July 25, 2011

Big conservative funders are making a new push at universities

Right turn on campus
Funders are working through official university channels to underwrite lecture series, conferences and colloquia, and centers geared for the general-interest student, all carrying university imprimatur.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | July 18, 2011

Rapture, ruptured

Diverse-city
May 21 came and went, and nobody got lifted naked skyward into Heaven.
By SHAY STEWART-BOULEY | May 25, 2011

Local musical sends up gay-hating, gay culture

Theatrical exposures
Reverend Jonathan Fisher (Michael Tobin), founder of Straight and Narrow, an evangelical congregation meant to "cure" homosexuals, has a problem.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | May 12, 2011

Ferraro, a photo, and a legacy

Tribute
Geraldine Ferraro's photograph stands proudly in a silver frame, inscribed to my daughter with the words, "You are my hero."
By MARY ANN SORRENTINO | March 30, 2011

Grace Zabriskie on Big Love and marriage

Lynch's lady
Through the course of 80 films and countless television guest spots, actress Grace Zabriskie has worked with directors as varied as David Lynch, Werner Herzog, and Michael Bay.
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | March 16, 2011

Review: R. Crumb illuminates the Bible at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Biblically speaking
The Book of Genesis seems like inherently good fodder for R. Crumb's satirical debasement.
By ANNIE LARMON | March 16, 2011

Review: Of Gods and Men

Thoughtful true story about the search for peace and purpose in a chaotic world
Xavier Beauvois co-wrote and directed this thoughtful true story of a small Trappist monastery situated in a poor Algerian Muslim village overrun with fundamentalist mercenaries.
By PEG ALOI | March 17, 2011

Start your own Westboro Baptists franchise today!

Big Fat Whale
Free speech free-for-all!
By BRIAN MCFADDEN | March 09, 2011

Will the Catholic Church kill gay marriage?

Inside the high-stakes battle over same-sex nuptials in Rhode Island
Rhode Island’s gay marriage moment has finally arrived. And the Catholic Church just might kill it.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | February 23, 2011

By | January 01, 0001

I was a teenage Sandinista

Deb Olin Unferth left college in the '80s to become a Communist Freedom Fighter. It didn't quite work out that way.
As a freshman philosophy major at the University of Colorado, Deb Olin Unferth fell in love with a junior named George. A pious Evangelical, George felt it was his duty to help his Communist brethren in Central America fight against their capitalist oppressors. So he did, and Unferth went with him.
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | January 31, 2011

Diva down!

Babysitting the Bish; nautical talk; dissing discourse
Phillipe and Jorge rushed to the home of our close pal and confidante Bishop Tommy Tobin last weekend with cold compresses and fistfuls of Valium in an effort to tend to our well-accessorized dogmatist in a time of trouble.
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | January 12, 2011

Review: Cappella Clausura in Ordo Virtutum

Cappella Clausura tames the Devil at the First Lutheran Church on November 12, 2010
Sex and the single (it’s the only one we have) 12th-century opera? That’s what an early-music outfit was promising at the First Lutheran Church of Boston this past Sunday.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | November 18, 2010

Cinematic excess

Matthew Barney's seven-hour Cremaster Cycle descends in the Portland Museum of Art
Eight years after its completion, The Cremaster Cycle , Matthew Barney's interminable multi-media opus, continues to befuddle and intrigue audiences.
By ANNIE LARMON | November 10, 2010

By | January 01, 0001

Children of Eden's entertaining Bible stories

Family feuds
The team behind Children of Eden have plenty of creative cred; that's one thing in its favor. And then there's the backhanded compliment that the show isn't likely to turn you into a whooping, fundamentalist Bible-thumper.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | October 19, 2010

Review: A. Cemal Ekin's 'Touching the History' at PC

See the light
In June 2009, A. Cemal Ekin, a marketing professor at Providence College, found himself in Istanbul, Turkey, atop scaffolding rising some 16 stories high inside the historic dome of Hagia Sophia.
By GREG COOK | October 12, 2010

'Sorry' was the wrong word

Diverse-city
I’ve waited a long damn time for this state to become less white. Now, I can see at least a few people of color every day without breaking a sweat, when nearly nine years ago I could go days upon days without seeing a single non-white face.
By SHAY STEWART-BOULEY | September 16, 2010

Review: Thy Will Be Done

Sara Herwig becomes woman, minister
There is a marvelous, understated juxtaposition here between Sara Herwig's journey to becoming a woman and her journey to becoming a minister.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | September 08, 2010