My daughter is not a pink-princess kind of girl, but we’ve had enough glimpses of fairy wings and pixie dust to make me interested in reading Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Peggy Orenstein’s incisive and funny exploration of the “new girlie-girl culture” she sees being marketed to girls at ever-younger ages. If you have a young…

“Hi, my name is Brad Carmack, calling on behalf of Protect Marriage Maine.  Will you vote to maintain the traditional definition of marriage as between a man and a woman?” This was my phone pitch in October of 2009.  Calling from Provo, Utah, I volunteered in the effort to persuade voters in Maine to oppose…

“I had no idea how cynical the Book of Ecclesiastes could be,” I told my writing group a couple of weeks ago. “It also contradicts itself over and over again: Life sucks, and then it’s beautiful. There’s no reward in heaven, but God cares about us. Rich people can’t be trusted, yet they are chosen…

Today’s “Talk of the Nation” broadcast will be devoted to Mormonism: what it is, what it’s not, and why so many non-Mormons are afraid of it. I don’t know who all the guests are, but I’m thrilled that one of them will be Joanna Brooks of Religion Dispatches. I find her writing to be both…

Jana Riess
about

Jana Riess

Jana Riess is the author of Flunking Sainthood, a 2011 book about failing at twelve different spiritual practices. She is also currently working on The Twible, a three-year Twitter project with humorous daily Bible updates for your amusement (find her on Twitter as @janariess). She has a few silly degrees from swanky schools but was never once able to climb the rope in gym class. Her spiritual director is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

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