Marginal Christianity

Part 1:  A History of the Age of Authenticity 1: The Boring Church and the Pursuit of Authenticity The Dawn of the Age of Authenticity Five hundred years ago we lived in an enchanted world. The self was porous and the good, the right, the true and beautiful (transcendent realities) were never thought to be a subjective apprehension. Rather we lived in a world where we could encounter such things in our lives. After the Enlightenment, the individual’s own subjective experience became the norm. No longer worried about being troubled or encountered by transcendent realities (good or demonic), our enemy became whatever frustrated or hindered our personal pursuits. The self was now buffered from transcendent realities; the word was disenchanted. We looked now at our own natural lives under the constraints of scientific rationalism, which meant doubting all other realities. All that was left to us was personal authenticity. Church and much of society lined up on the en...

Oprah is appealing because her stories hide the role of political, economic and social structures in our lives. They make the American dream seem attainable Nicole Aschoff Saturday 9 May 2015 08.30 EDT Last modified on Saturday 9 May 2015 16.50 EDT In Oprah Winfrey lore, one particular story is repeated over and over. When Oprah was 17, she won the Miss Fire Prevention Contest in Nashville, Tennessee. Until that year every winner had had a mane of red hair, but Oprah would prove to be a game changer. The contest was the first of many successes for Oprah. She has won numerous Emmys, has been nominated for an Oscar, and appears on lists like Time’s 100 Most Influential People. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She founded the Oprah Book Club, which is often credited with reviving Americans’ interest in reading. Her generosity and philanthropic spirit are legendary. Oprah has legions of obsessive, devoted fans who write her letters and...

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/will_the_mighty_blockbuster_fail_and_the_people_be_saved_20140518 Posted on May 18, 2014 Photo by  galactic.supermarket   (CC BY 2.0) As “Godzilla” storms the box office this weekend, observers note that the entertainment industry’s lust for high profits via mega-hits is narrowing the number and kinds of stories told and amplifying conformity among the public, Jennifer Rankin  reports  at The Guardian. In the book “Blockbusters,” published by  Harvard University  Press, author Anita Eberse writes that 70 percent of Warner Bros.’ 2010 revenue came from its four most expensive films—“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I” (budget $250 million), “Inception” ($175 million), “Clash of the Titans” ($125 million) and “Sex and the City” ($100 million). “The entertainment industry is moving more towards a winner-take-all-market,” Rankin quotes Eberse as writing. Rankin points out that th...