Recently in Politics Category

The widely anticipated "Book of Genesis Illustrated" penned by R. Crumb, the famous comic book artist and graphic novelist released yesterday and the backlash from Christian groups and churches has already begun.

I first heard about R. Crumb's foray into turning Genesis into a graphic novel last spring at Book Expo America, the largest annual book fair in the US, where Norton (his publisher) was pushing it hard. The visual depictions they had available were stunning and made me pretty excited to see what the rest would be like. Then yesterday, I came across a very balanced, positive review of "Book of Genesis Illustrated" on Religion Dispatches. Gabriel Mckee writes not only about Crumb's interpretive decisions with the text, but about how he was not playing around with this sacred book by any sense of the term:

"Far from the sharp satire that one might expect from the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural, Genesis is a remarkably straight, even reverent, adaptation. In his introduction, Crumb explains that he avoided adding interpretation or clearing up confusing passages, leaving the Bible as is "rather than monkey around with such a venerable text... I approached this as a straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes." He notes the irony that devout, didactic Bible comics creators are more willing to play around with scripture by inserting "completely made up narrative and dialogue," while he, a non-believer, lets the text speak for itself."

Mckee goes on to add that, "The design of the book's jacket belies the seriousness of its contents."

Are gore and ghosts ungodly? For years Hollywood has been eyeing the huge audiences in two of the most populous Muslim nations in the world. But now legislators in neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia--both densely populated, with moderate Muslim majorities are raising obstacles, insisting on quotas on foreign films and talking about banning horror flicks as unIslamic.

Those of you who haven't followed Kirk Cameron since he was that lovable scamp Mike Seaver on "Growing Pains" might not be aware that the actor has most recently become a spokesperson for evangelical Christian initiatives, including his latest, coming just in time for Darwin Day.

On November 21, Darwin's "Origin of Species" celebrates its 150th anniversary. In a video on YouTube, Cameron announced that he is circulating his own, newly edited version of Darwin's seminal work - with a 50 page introduction that frames the intelligent design argument. His intentions are framed as concern for the widespread atheism among Americans which is "radically changing the culture of our nation." This is possible because the book - like others copyrighted before 1923 - is now considered public domain.

It's not news that Stephen Colbert is a Catholic. He's admitted as much on his Comedy Channel show, "The Colbert Report." (Besides, even with the best hairstylists in television at your disposal, you can't fake that precisely parted, altar-boy-grown-up hair-do.)

But in an interview in the current Rolling Stone, Colbert gives us a rare glimpse of his beliefs. As a Catholic believer, Colbert regards himself as "highly variable in [his] devotion," he tells interviewer Neil Strauss. "From ... a strictly Catholic adherent point of view, I'm first to say that I talk a good game, but I don't know how good I am about it in practice," Colbert admits.

Can the Qur'an, a book that is indelibly, even necessarily, Arabic, have a place in American culture? Sandow Birk, a "vaguely Presbyterian" American artist from Southern California presents that question in "American Qur'an." In an exhibit of works on paper opening this week at a gallery in San Francisco, Birk juxtaposes passages from the Islamic Scriptures (in English, lettered in Los Angeles's "Cholo" graffiti style) with scenes drawn from American life, including 9/11 and a NASCAR racetrack. While he told The New York Times that his intentions are "respectful and reverential," Birks admits that "I've been more hesitant and self-doubting about this project than anything else I've ever done."