In this episode I talk to film-maker Christopher Maloney about his latest documentary, In God We Trump, which explores the confounding relationship between Trump and the evangelical world.
Evangelicalism’s Betrayal
Author: Stephen Bradford Long
Stephen Bradford Long is a writer, yoga teacher, and Satanist living and working in North Carolina. His work focuses on religion, sexuality, culture, and other subjects that strike his fancy.
Does an Afterlife Make This Life Meaningful?
Around this time last year, I buried my cousin. Ian was a vegan, atheist, and environmentalist so dedicated to the cause of caring for the earth that his principles extended even to his death. After a physicist gave a science lesson on what would happen to Ian’s body, and how he would nourish the tree that would be planted over him, we took shovels and buried what was left of Ian. He was wrapped in purple linen, and the cancer had reduced his frame to a frail shadow of his former fit, powerful, athletic self.
The ceremony was void of any spirit, symbol, or God. I was disquieted by the that, and yet I was moved. I was moved by Ian’s commitment to science, and his care for the earth. I was tempted to call the funeral hopeless, but realized that wasn’t right. The funeral was full of love, conviction, and hope, and didn’t need to say anything about an afterlife. That wasn’t the point of Ian’s life – Ian was about the here and now, the earth, the injustices that plagued the planet now. He didn’t believe in the afterlife, and that lack of belief thrust him headfirst into the present. Plus, it wasn’t my funeral. Who was I to cast judgement on Ian’s wishes? That would be tasteless.
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Face the Music and Dance: Responding to Climate Change
Earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change dropped a horrifying ultimatum on the world: we have a mere 12 years to to mobilize a World War II level effort to change the effects of climate change to avoid a cataclysmic future.
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Nontheism and Anxiety
I’ve been fairly vocal about my journey into nontheistic religion, and the response from fellow Christians has been a tremendous amount of anxiety. I’ve found myself in twitter disputes over faith, and I’ve had more awkward coffee dates with concerned Christians than I’d prefer.
Continue reading “Nontheism and Anxiety”I Have Always Been an Abomination: On Homosexuality, Satan, and The Church
Why do I relate to the figure of Satan? Why, in my deconstruction, has the figure of Satan emerged as the far more sympathetic, heroic, and interesting character? I can go on and on about post-modernist reframings of classic stories (if Gregory Maguire can do it with the Wicked Witch of the West why can’t I do it with Satan?) but, none of that really gets to the heart of it. I think, for me, it all goes back to being gay.
Continue reading “I Have Always Been an Abomination: On Homosexuality, Satan, and The Church”Religion as Language
My faith is evolving from a religion of revealed truth to a religion of language and symbol. The faith of my childhood and young adulthood – taking for granted that a personal God is real, that scripture is God breathed, and that there is an after life – is now effectively dead. I question all of that, now. I don’t know what happens after I die, but I think “nothing happens” is the most likely answer. My understanding of God has expanding into something so abstract and impersonal that I can hardly call it God at all, and the personal God of my old faith is long gone.
In Defense of Satan
It’s probably slipped out now that I’m a member of the Satanic Temple. When I first made the choice to join, I decided that it would be a very quiet, personal decision, which I would share only with my most intimate friends. I’m very bad at keeping secrets, however, and by now I’ve spoken about it with friends of the less intimate variety, on my podcast, and I’ve voiced my admiration for the temple on social media.
Because of this, it’s probably time I start explaining why I would make the choice to join such a notorious organization.
You Better Be Right
I was recently having breakfast with a dear friend visiting from out of town. Like many of my old friends, we found ourselves in an awkward place: a great chasm opening between us. He is still firmly situated in evangelical Christianity, and I’m unmoored and drifting away from my old faith. We still love each other, but it’s difficult. The anxiety, on their part, is palpable, and I feel anxiety, too, because I recoil from conflict, and the fear of getting hurt.
I Was Wrong About Trigger Warnings
Back in 2016, when I was (to my shame – I’m not proud of this fact) covertly flirting with alt-light ideas, I wrote an article called, “A Curmudgeon’s manifesto,” in which I established my personal rules for engagement and code of conduct. I still stand by much of what I wrote in that article, but you can hear my savagely wounded pride as an undercurrent in the piece. I’d recently been the victim of twitter hate from people I thought were my friends, and I’d never experienced such a thing before. I was wounded and disoriented, and the experience almost pushed me away from my fellow queer progressives and into the sweet, deadly embrace of the alt-right.
The universe doesn’t care what I believe about it
When we talk about God — the existence if a God, the presence of God, the purposes God has for our lives — we often speak as if what we believe about the universe will alter the universe in a fundamental way.
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Stephen Bradford Long 