Read | Faith as Addiction: Reviewing Steve McQueen’s Shame

Faith as Addiction

In a week in which addiction is being much discussed, due to the sad death of talented actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman, this article looks at faith as addiction. Reviewing Steve McQueen’s film Shame and written by a professor of religious studies, it tackles the idea that religious faith can be regarded as an addiction

S. Brent Plate is visiting associate professor of religious studies at Hamilton College. He is the author of Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-Creation of the World, Blasphemy: Art that Offends

 

Read | At the Judgement Seat: Faith and Wonder

 

Killing the Buddha Site

This is an  article written by a woman who grew up an evangelical christian but then lost her faith in that religion. It’s insightful to read a first hand account of someone’s loss of faith. She calls for more stories of loss of faith that are beyond the well known reason overcoming faith explanation.

What if we had different kinds of stories of faith lost today, beyond the usual narrative of rationality trumping emotion?  What emotions would become possible then?  Awe—without the undergirding dogma of the evolutionary biologist or a purpose-driven God.  Gratitude—to nobody in particular.  An aliveness to a changeable and often uncertain world as it is, at this very moment.

It links to previous posts on the subject of Wonder and Awe.