Filed Under (Religion Research) by Admin on 10-03-2010
Randall Stephens
Ive been doing some nonfiction pleasure reading that overlaps with my work. (I try to avoid that sort of thing whenever possible, because it could nerd me out beyond all measure.) I like 
Herbert Asburys punch-punch, bludgeon, stab-stab prose. (Asbury sat at the feet of H. L. Mencken, like so many other talented, and even untalented, writers of his era.) So Asburys 1926 memoir about growing up in the stodgy Methodist town of Farmington, Missouri (Farmington, Misery for him) drew my eye when I saw it on a bookstore shelf some months back. As an added bonus Roy Blount, Jr. writes the insightful foreword to the 2003 edition of Up From Methodism: A Memoir of a Man Gone to the Devil. (I got it new from Half Price Books for $3.98! Half Price Books, please send the check to my office for that blurb.)
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Filed Under (Reigion Gossip) by Admin on 10-03-2010
Texas’ State Board of Education is no stranger to controversy. One of the most watched races in the Texas primaries on March 2 was the Republican contest between incumbent SBOE member Don McLeroy and challenger Thomas Ratliff. Ratliff prevailed, in part because he campaigned on the idea that the board shouldn’t get into cultural war debates over issues like teaching evolution.
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The last hours of Kimberly Simons life in 1985 were likely spent with a group of young men who worshiped the devil, tortured cats, used hallucinogenic drugs and sexually abused women, according to investigators who have been probing her homicide for the past 16 months.
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Herbert Asburys punch-punch, bludgeon, stab-stab prose. (Asbury sat at the feet of H. L. Mencken, like so many other talented, and even untalented, writers of his era.) So Asburys 1926 memoir about growing up in the stodgy Methodist town of Farmington, Missouri (Farmington, Misery for him) drew my eye when I saw it on a bookstore shelf some months back. As an added bonus Roy Blount, Jr. writes the insightful foreword to the 2003 edition of Up From Methodism: A Memoir of a Man Gone to the Devil. (I got it new from Half Price Books for $3.98! Half Price Books, please send the check to my office for that blurb.)