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FallGuide2009

Christianity

Latest Articles

Freedom isn’t free

Press Releases
Campaign-finance reformers often object to the idea that money equals speech. But even for progressives, it does indeed.
By JEFF INGLIS  |  September 23, 2009
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Black beauty

Fences, plus The Savannah Disputation and Mister Roberts
August Wilson pioneered a magical realism all his own.
By CAROLYN CLAY  |  September 22, 2009

Face off

Doubt explores the quicksand of certainty
If you were an ordinary Catholic boy in parochial school, giving nuns as hard a time as you were getting, you probably ended up with the usual stories of ruler-rapped knuckles. If you grew up to be talented playwright John Patrick Shanley, you ended up writing Doubt: A Parable , a fascinating exploration of the quicksand of certainty.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  September 15, 2009
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Not so elementary

Barbara Bradley Hagerty goes looking for God
On June 14, 1995, around two in the afternoon, I lowered my guard. I opened myself up just barely to the notion that there might be a God who cares about me in the same way that Jesus cared about, say, his friend Mary.
By JEFFREY GANTZ  |  September 02, 2009
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Amazing Grace

Sweet tastes, beautiful building, heavenly reward
Few of us bother to go to church, so Mainers must find ways to reuse our houses of worship, just as we do our riverside mills in this post-industrial age. While several restaurants have put mothballed mill buildings to use, Grace Restaurant's repurposing of the Chestnut Street Methodist Church is the most impressive reclamation project yet.
By BRIAN DUFF  |  September 02, 2009
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David Bazan | Curse Your Branches

Barsuk (2009)
The "Christian music" tag is still a puzzling cross on David Bazan's back. Sure, he writes a lot about Christianity, but he mostly sticks to its failures in the face of depression, death, and doubt.
By JAKE COHEN  |  August 25, 2009
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Review: Fifty Dead Men Walking

Fast-paced but uninvolving
In the 1980s in Northern Ireland, a petty hustler named Martin McGartland (Jim Sturgess) went from street-corner obscurity to playing a major role in the war in Belfast between Catholics and Protestants, as he swore allegiance to the militant branch of the IRA while spying for the British police.
By GERALD PEARY  |  August 19, 2009
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Review: Thirst

Park Chan-wook's latest gets a little messy
Some amazing images in the first hour of Park Chan-wook's film promise the equal of his Old Boy — such as when a priest bandaged like the Invisible Man descends a flight of stairs to a throng of worshippers.
By PETER KEOUGH  |  August 19, 2009
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Just the beginning

The battle for marriage equality really starts now
More than a few people asked us why we are publishing this special section now — now that gay-marriage opponents have filed their People's Veto signatures, now that same-sex marriages will not be taking place at least until after Mainers vote on the issue on November 3.
By DEIRDRE FULTON  |  August 04, 2009
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It's time to party!

Get your friends together and marshal support for marriage
Doug Kimmel and Ron Schwiser were married 40 years ago by a Presbyterian minister. They've lived in Hancock — where they pay taxes, attend church, and volunteer in the community — for more than 20 years. Yet, they are virtual strangers in the eyes of the law. They are denied the more than 400 legal rights and benefits that come with marriage under Maine law.
By SHENNA BELLOWS  |  August 04, 2009
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Just the beginning

The battle for marriage equality really starts now
More than a few people asked us why we are publishing this special section now — now that gay-marriage opponents have filed their People's Veto signatures, now that same-sex marriages will not be taking place at least until after Mainers vote on the issue on November 3.
By DEIRDRE FULTON  |  August 04, 2009
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Time to Dance? Dance. Dance!

Island Moving Co. Takes It Inside
Although Island Moving Co. has moved their summer dance concerts inside, after 20 years of battling the elements at outdoor venues around Newport, they have chosen an unusual and historic site — the 1699 Great Friends Meeting House, the oldest surviving house of worship (Quaker) in the city — for Dance? Dance. Dance! (through July 26).
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ  |  July 21, 2009

From Jester to Esther

Sarah Palin sees self as a religious legend, not a political football
During the presidential campaign last fall, the Phoenix took note of a curious undercurrent in the annals of Sarah Palin fandom: the notion of Palin as a modern-day Queen Esther.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN  |  July 15, 2009
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Interview: Kathy Griffin

D Girl
"I think Ryan Seacrest and Oprah will finally be together, and it will be like one of those great '70s cover-up movies and I'm playing the body."
By JIM SULLIVAN  |  June 11, 2009
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The blessing of abortion

Pro-choice provocateur: Meet Cambridge divinity dean Katherine Ragsdale
Abortion is dominating the headlines — and giving new resonance to the radically pro-choice gospel of Katherine Ragsdale, dean of Cambridge's Episcopal Divinity School.
By ADAM REILLY  |  June 12, 2009
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Keeping faith

Piers Paul Read looks inside the Church
His publicist calls Piers Paul Read "the anti-Dan Brown." She's capitalizing on a buzz - worthy name, sure, but it's a fairly insightful description of a man whose latest book, The Death of a Pope , explores not the Brownish theme of the Catholic Church secretly at work in world affairs, but rather its inverse.
By JEFF INGLIS  |  June 03, 2009
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Judgment day

Taking stock of Judas Iscariot
Interesting premise. The Last Days of Judas Iscariot , by Stephen Adly Guirgis, suggests what could happen if Judas, the most despised of the New Testament villains, were put on trial in purgatory.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ  |  May 20, 2009
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The rain in Maine

Gay Marriage Ratified — and Jilted
If you're planning a trip to Vacationland this summer, be sure to bring your galoshes — the "gay storm" that's been satirized all over the Internet rolled into Maine last week.
By DEIRDRE FULTON  |  May 13, 2009

Do it like we used to do

Traditional marriage and values
There's a lot to be said for what opponents of same-sex nuptials call "traditional marriage."
By AL DIAMON  |  May 06, 2009
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Various artists | Spiritual Jazz: Esoteric, Modal, and Deep Jazz from the Underground, 1968-1977

Jazzman (2009)
Apple-pie Mormon missionaries the Millers travel through Iran to spread the gospel of Joseph Smith among Muslims and Zoroastrians, and their kid discovers the glorious sound of the santur.
By GUSTAVO TURNER  |  April 21, 2009
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Catholic Tilt

James Carroll justifies his faith
If, sometime in the next few decades, humanity kicks the religion habit once and for all, the current crop of atheist agitators will deserve plenty of credit.
By ADAM REILLY  |  April 02, 2009

Interview: James Carroll

The full transcript of the Phoenix's conversation with the author
The Phoenix 's Adam Reilly recently spoke with Globe columnist James Carroll about his new book, Practicing Catholic (Houghton Mifflin), and his critical but durable relationship with the Roman Catholic Church.
By ADAM REILLY  |  April 01, 2009
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Review: Scenes from a Parish

Father Paul saves Lawrence
James Rutenbeck's modest, old-fashioned, simply shot documentary is exactly the right way to tell a story of old-time verities and virtues, daily life in a Catholic parish in Lawrence
By GERALD PEARY  |  April 08, 2009

39. Jim Bob Duggar

THE SPERMINATOR
This conservative Baptist, former Arkansas state legislator, and star of TLC reality stinkers — including 14 Kids and Pregnant Again and 18 Kids and Counting — evidently has little regard for his poor wife, who, to date, has delivered four more children than the octo-mom. Dude: enough already! Oddly, Duggar’s children are not permitted to watch television — though they are allowed to waste other people’s time with their own pointless programs and Today Show appearances.
By Boston Phoenix Staff  |  March 25, 2009

41. Warren Jeffs

LATTER DAY TAINT
Jeffs, the creepy leader of the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is a grade-A shitbird — he reportedly described Hurricane Katrina as an answer to his prayers — and so nobody was surprised when he was finally convicted, in 2007, of being an accessory to child rape. (That case also exposed a hideous loophole in the Arizona laws against incest — they only apply to those over 18.) That should’ve been the end of the road, except that according to a recent Salt Lake Tribune story, Jeff’s diaries indicate that he’s retained a hold over his followers from jail. To be continued? We hope not.
By Boston Phoenix Staff  |  March 25, 2009

36. Raffaello Follieri

CARDINAL SINNER
Anne Hathaway’s greaseball ex-boyfriend, who has a face like a Picasso painting, may end up bunking next to Bernie Madoff for money laundering and misappropriating millions in fraudulent investments. Seems to us a guy with a name that slick — and a knack for getting his picture taken with the Pope — should be actually getting away with shit.
By Boston Phoenix Staff  |  March 25, 2009
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Same-sex marriage

Fighting for a basic civil right without repeating other states' mistakes
From the podium at EqualityMaine's 25th anniversary dinner last Saturday night, former state senator Ethan Strimling posed a question to the 630 people in attendance: If gay marriage were allowed in Maine, how many of you would tie the knot?  
By DEIRDRE FULTON  |  March 25, 2009
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Three's company

Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese rule at the MFA
The show's American curator, Frederick Ilchman, has snagged an improbable number of pairs and trios from the world's famous (and not so famous) museums.
By JEFFREY GANTZ  |  March 11, 2009
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Review: Waiting for Dublin

A national-stereotypes manual masquerading as a movie
Director Roger Tucker fills the emerald hills with snoozing priests, bumbling alcoholic policemen, ruddy-faced children, and grizzled fiddle players who say, "Top o' the mornin' to yeh!"
By ALEXIS HAUK  |  March 11, 2009

The problem with the Church's selective embrace

Vatican City
Pope Benedict recently lifted the excommunication of four bishops who had been consecrated without the required Vatican consent.
By MARY ANN SORRENTINO  |  February 12, 2009

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