Issue 53: Letters

Send your divine truth to [email protected].

Religiosity Isn’t Done Changing Our World

Reza Aslan, one of the foremost scholars of religion in America, talks to Jacobin about Jesus the revolutionary, Palestine, and the continued growth of religion in the world.

Bringing the Socialism of the Gospels to America

The Institute for Christian Socialism is trying to build left-wing solidarity within religious communities. For these Christians, a commitment to socialism is inherent in the Gospel.

Teamsters for a Democratic Union and the New Labor Insurgency

The Teamster rank-and-file movement is spreading worker power and making the most of labor’s movement moment, writes longtime Teamsters for a Democratic Union organizer Ken Paff.

The Church of Dr Funkenstein

George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic developed a curious connection to the works of the apocalyptic cult the Process Church of the Final Judgment.

Why the Reformation Matters

The Reformation was a fundamental transformation in European society, blending religious disputes with political ideology and class conflict.

Jesus on the Big Screen

Depictions of the Nazarene began nearly the moment cinema did.

Five Books on Religion and the Left

The Struggle for Soviet Cosmology

For the Soviet Union, atheism became more than the absence of religion. It was an ideology that had to fill the void of religion itself.

Many Are Called, Few Are Chosen

There are innumerable cinematic Jesuses, most of them bland, pious, and blue-eyed — until an Italian communist decided to preach the old gospel in a new way.

The Churches of the Polish People’s Republic

Postwar Poland saw a huge wave of church-building, within and against the professedly socialist system.

Holy Land, USA

Christian tourists enjoy plenty of God-honoring vacation destinations across the United States.

Sister Corita’s Immaculate Art

In the 1960s, a nun in California decided to make contemporary art — and managed to serve both the Vatican and the anti–Vietnam War movement in the process.

A Window Into Victorian Socialism

The Fabian Society immortalized its brand of reformist socialism in stained glass.

The Counterculture’s Come-to-Jesus Moment

How a corruption of New Left ideology became fodder for the religious right.

Jim Larkin: Labor Prophet

Irish labor leader Jim Larkin’s combination of Christian faith and socialist zeal electrified the working class — and threatened to tear down the established order.

The Church of Human Resources

For some, capitalism’s failures are to be redeemed not by political action but by civilization-scale moral projects under the remit of a new clergy: human resources.

Socialists in the Kingdom of God

Today the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is widely understood to be a right-wing force in US politics. But just over 100 years ago, Mormons were at the center of a religious socialist renaissance in Utah.

The End(s) of the World

How some world religions imagine the apocalypse.

Waiting for the Savior

History is full of dynamic religious leaders who were not, in the end, the messiah.