Killing the Buddha

I found somebody doing the thinking about religion and journalism. His name is Jeff Sharlet. He co-founded a site called Killing the Buddha, which I have known about for years, and sort of drifts in and out of my awareness.

KtB publishes articles and essays about people grappling with religion, any religion. I've found it interesting, but I've never been able to really feel it for a couple of reasons. Often at KtB, they're speaking not just a different language but an idiolect: trying to communicate something so personal and pre-verbal that it just doesn't come across.

But also because I have always operated under the assumption that I'm missing something when it comes to religion. I'm frequently dissatisfied with my religion and the intersection of religions, and bewildered by faith (including why I have it at all). But I've concluded I believe in a God who is fundamentally bigger than me and acting my best interests.

It isn't that I don't question or doubt; it is that when I question or doubt, the first place I look is inside. What am I missing? If I'm operating under the premise that God is omnipotent and loving, then I must assume his shit is together. The wild card is my reason and perception.

Intellectually, I've been down the road where God doesn't match that premise, and that road leads to heat death. So I don't spend a lot of time there. As far as I can tell, either Jesus is as advertised, or existence is meaningless. I know! So absolute! But there it is.

So reading a bunch of essays about how confusing religions are, I mean, I feel you brother, but you know, order up some fear and trembling and get to work on that.

Anyway, KtB is worth looking at. And Jeff Sharlet's other site, The Revealer, is the whole reason I'm writing this post. From the About Us section:

The Revealer is a daily review of religion in the news and the news about religion. We're not so much nonpartisan as polypartisan -- interested in all sides, disdainful of dualistic arguments, and enamored of free speech as a first principle.... We begin with three basic premises: 1. Belief matters, whether or not you believe. Politics, pop culture, high art, NASCAR -- everything in this world is infused with concerns about the next. As journalists, as scholars, and as ordinary folks, we cannot afford to ignore the role of religious belief in shaping our lives. 2. The press all too frequently fails to acknowledge religion, categorizing it as either innocuous spirituality or dangerous fanaticism, when more often it's both and inbetween and just plain other. 3. We deserve and need better coverage of religion. Sharper thinking. Deeper history. Thicker description. Basic theology. Real storytelling.

This is a big step in the direction I'm looking. Not afraid of religion in news media, but not prostrate before sectarian interests.