Articles

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Wall Street Journal: "Thomas Jefferson's Cut-and-Paste Bible"

Thoughts (mostly historical) on the Jefferson Bible being restored for display at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History (March 25, 2011).

USA Today: "In Changing Egypt, Where Will Faith Fall?"

What would Reinhold Niebuhr say about the Egyptian revolt? (February 20, 2011).

USA Today: "Should Schools Scrap Religious Holidays?"

"As religious holidays expand, the demands of the Constitution and of pragmatism, which now run in opposite directions, will merge, forcing us to do what we are eventually going to have to do: Whittle our public school holy days down to zero" (December 19, 2010).

Wall Street Journal: "Can Yoga Be Christian?"

. . . and other questions of body and soul (October 22, 2010).

USA Today: "It's Time to Teach Religion in Schools"

Most Americans flunk the Pew Forum's "U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey"--more evidence, in my view, for the necessity of teaching about the world's religions in public schools (October 3, 2010).

Big Questions Online: "Against the Answer Bank Theory of Religion"

"I know that many will continue to see the great religions as repositories of answers. But that is not why I continue to go to them in my life and in my work. I go to the great religions to look for questions" (August 9, 2010).

USA Today: "The Muslim Veil: Europe vs. USA"

I may have been a bit too optimistic here about the religious tolerance of Americans (August 2, 2010).

Chronicle of Higher Education: "Wrestling With One God or Another"

"When Americans began to wrestle with the challenges of race and ethnicity, many suggested that the only way forward was to create a colorblind society, in which all human beings are one. Today it is widely recognized that a firmer foundation for interracial and interethnic civility is a robust understanding of, and respect for, racial and ethnic differences. The realm of religion requires no less understanding of diversity, and no less respect" (June 27, 2010).

USA Today: "Faith on the Court Does, in Fact, Matter"

Stray thoughts on a post-Protestant Supreme Court (May 15, 2010).

Boston Globe: "Separate Truths"

No, the world's religions are not different paths up the same mountain. Summary of sorts of the "God is Not One" argument in a piece named one of the best "Ideas" essays of 2010 (April 25, 2010).

Killing The Buddha: "Why I am Not a Mystic"

What's a guy to do when the other Guy is God? Thoughts on love, Cape Cod, mystics, and such (April 12, 2010).

USA Today: "Vatican Must Confess"

Why can't Pope Benedict confess like Tiger? Because ethics are about empathy, and in the childless Vatican you empathize with your fellow priests (April 12, 2010).

USA Today: "Millennials Do God Their Own Way"

Another "On Religion" column for "USA Today," this time on the tendencies of the Millennial Generation to resist "branding" in religion and politics. Bad news, this, for religious denominations and political parties alike (March 29, 2010).

Killing the Buddha: "Fluent in Silence"

Stalking Salinger in Quaker Meeting: "It was as if he owed us, and since he wouldn’t pay up in words, we would punish him with pathology" (February 3, 2010).

USA Today: Brit Hume, Tiger Woods, Walter Cronkite, and the Buddha

My two cents on Brit Hume and Tiger Woods. I suppose there is now no unblurring the line between journalists and ideologues, but could the journalogues please know something about what they are talking about? (January 11, 2010)

Wall Street Journal: Spiritual Swinging (Religion, American Style)

"So much for the jealous God." Reflections on a new Pew poll on Americans as promiscuous religious swingers (December 11, 2009).

USA Today: "Atheists Need a Different Voice"

I never thought that an article on "pink atheism" would turn so many faces red. But it did. In fact, I got more angry email about this column than about any other column I've ever written. Still, I believe the atheist movement would be well served by listening to the stories of the women in its midst (December 7, 2009).

Washington Post: Walking the Bible All the Way to America

One of those books you really, really, really want to love, but it just doesn't measure up. My thoughts on Bruce Feiler's thoughts on Moses in American history (November 15, 2009).

Wall Street Journal: Fixing the Book of Mormon

My thoughts on a monumental, multi-year effort to rewrite the Book of Mormon, including some choice quotes from an interview I did with the author, Royal Skousen (October 2, 2009).

USA Today: "Will Americans Accept Islam?"

Obama says "yes." A new Pew poll says, "Not so fast" (September 21, 2009).

Washington Post: "Preaching the Gospel of Maybe"

"Thank God for agnostics." A mostly positive review of Robert Wright's The Evolution of God (August 2, 2009).

USA Today: "A Yawn Greets Catholic Court"

Pity the poor Episcopalians. No one seems to be crying over the fact that there is just one Protestant left on the US Supreme Court, or that with the appointment of Sotomayor our nation's highest judicial body will be only one-third less Catholic than the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (July 13, 2009).

"On Faith": "Can Sex Bring Us Closer to God?"

How the doctrine of the Incarnation might talk back to the Roman Catholic Church--on the Washington Post/Newsweek web site, "On Faith" (May 13, 2009) and in the Washington Post itself a few days later (May 16, 2009).

USA Today: Not So Post-Christian After All

Why in the most Christian country on earth do major newsmagazines feel the need trumpet the arrival of "post-Christian" America? (April 27, 2009).

Wall Street Journal: Muhammad, Islam, and Somali Piracy

I don't recommend writing stuff like this if you want peace and quiet in your inbox.

Killing the Buddha: Obama's Purloined Prayer

"A Niche of a Prayer in a Vulnerable Place" (August 13, 2008), reflections on the prayer placed in the Western Wall by Senator Barack Obama and then stolen by a seminarian. Based on my own travels to Jerusalem, and my own prayers at the Wall, this essay made the "Best Religion Writing of 2008" list at "The Revealer"

Washington Post: "Those Wacky Puritans"

Positive review of Sarah Vowell's breezy voyage with New England's bookish colonists (November 9, 2008).

USA Today: "An Election That Is, And Isn't, About God"

Religion in the 2008 presidential election, and some predictions about the role of religion in campaigns to come (November 3, 2008).

USA Today: "The Islam You Don't Hear About"

Reflections on Islam prompted by my recent research trip to Indonesia (June 23, 2008).

USA Today: "What Can We Expect From Benedict?"

Who's coming to dinner? God's Rottweiler or God's Poodle? Hate male galore on this one too (April 14, 2008).

USA Today: "American Faith: A Work in Progress"

Opinion piece on "nones" (the religiously unaffiliated)--not to be confused with "nuns" (March 10, 2008).

USA Today: "Is Religion Losing the Millennial Generation?"

Not sure why but this one prompted a lot of hate mail. Some personal reflections on a course I developed with my BU colleague David Eckel, focusing on my students' efforts to invent their own religions, and what those efforts have to say about the challenges facing Christianity and other traditional religions (February 4, 2008).

Washington Post: "'Tis Always Some Season"

Wherein I comment upon such matters as Egg Nog Day and the Festival of Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, and then present a modest proposal of my own regarding the proliferation of holiday cheer. . . . (December 23, 2007).

Washington Post: "Dividing Lines"

A mixed review of Garry Wills' popular history: "Head and Heart: American Christianities" (December 16, 2007).

Beliefnet.com: "Test Your Bible Knowledge"

Test your knowledge of the world's most influential book in this quiz I prepared for Beliefnet.com (July 2007).

Beliefnet.com: "A Religious Test for the Presidency"

Yes, the Constitution says elected officials cannot be made to pass a test of religious orthodoxy. But how about a test of religious knowledge? In this Beliefnet piece, I say "YES!" (July 2007).

NYT Book Review: "Kiss and Make Up"

I wish I could say I wrote the headline. I didn't. But I did write this "New York Times Book Review" piece on "Reading Judas" by Elaine Pagels and Karen King. And I liked this book quite a bit better than "God is not Great" (6/24/2007).

Washington Post: Hitchens is Not Great

My rant against Christopher Hitchens's rant against religion: "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." "The Unbeliever," "Washington Post" (5/6/2007).

Books & Culture: "Looming Tower" Review

My take on Lawrence Wright's masterful narrative history of the events leading up to 9/11, with an emphasis on the Islamic notion of takfir (3/19/07).

NYT Book Review: "The Variety Show of Religious Experience"

Review of J.C. Hallman's "The Devil is a Gentleman" (July 2, 2006).

Christian Science Monitor: "A Nation of Religious Illiterates"

My most widely reprinted article, this first appeared in the Los Angeles Times on January 12, 2005. It was later reprinted in dozens of U.S. newspapers and in venues in China, India, Qatar, and Africa.

All Things Considered: "Beheading and Shock"

An NPR commentary on beheadings in Iraq.

Slate: "Why is 'The Passion of the Christ' So Controversial?"

Six-part exchange with Robert Alter about Mel Gibson's movie about the torture and death of Jesus. I liked the book better than the movie.

Harvard Divinity Bulletin: "Belief Unbracketed"

Religious studies scholars have long attempted to "bracket" their personal judgments about the religious traditions they study. This short article, reprinted in "Best Christian Writing 2006," calls into question that baseline assumption, wondering whether the study of religion might be better served by scholars who at least partially "unbracket" themselves. For a series of sharp (or is it angry?) rejoinders to this piece, see "Four Responses to 'Belief Unbracketed.'"

Wall Street Journal: "Love Bombs at Home"

One of my Wall Street Journal pieces - on how 9/11 turned the United States from a "Judeo-Christian" nation into a "Judeo-Christian-Islamic" one.

Salon: "Timothy Leary is Dead and Well and Blasting Through Outer Space"

One of my Salon pieces - on the "space burial" of the countercultural icon Timothy Leary.

Book Reviews by Stephen Prothero

Boston Globe: on Karen Armstrong's "The Great Transformation"

Wall Street Journal: on Leigh Eric Schmidt's "Restless Souls"

Salon: on Jack Kerouac's "Some of the Dharma"