I’ve finally had a chance to catch up on some Tivoing now that summer school is almost over.

One show I had been anxiously waiting to watch was John Safran vs. God, on the Sundance Channel. What little I had heard about it (and this really hasn’t hit the zeistgeist) was that the show was an irreverent look at religions around the world. Irreverent was correct; thoughtful, not so much.

I guess what I had envisioned was a sort of Christopher Hitchens/God is not great take on religions around the world. What I got was a mix of guerrilla filmmaking, some making fun (he did a piece on Mormon filmmaking that was funny, but ran too long) and some overlong ranting. What I later learned from Safran’s Web site is that he is considered to be Australia’s Michael Moore. He is, obviously, an interesting filmmaker. There is no doubt about that. He is fearless in is approach, which made some of this show quite interesting.

However, this show just didn’t work for me. Maybe it lost something in the translation. I was really rooting for an Australian Jew to break through to the big time. He did in Australia (he won a “best comedy series” for this show). I guess I’m just not as hip as I thought I was. Can someone fill me in?

Excuse me for not posting frequently as of late — summer school started last week, and this coming week is Promax (a marketing conference for media people), but please do stay plugged in.

Even in the midst of this, I felt compelled to watch CNN’s coverage of the faith of the Democratic candidates. (CNN is supposed to do a Republican version of the same show, but I have yet to see it.)

The three leading candidates — John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton — were each given 15 minutes to present their religious beliefs. They each came to the stage individually. First, they sat down to talk with Soledad O’Brien, who appropriately fawned over each one in turned. Then questions were taken from the audience. These questions came from clergy, including Jim Wallis, the author of God’s Politics and the editor of Sojourners, which was sponsoring the event.

Beside the obvious use of religion as a means of marketing the future president, it just seemed so unseemly. When did “I’m more religious than you are” rate as an attribute for electing a president? We have a president now that couldn’t possibly be any more religious and it certainly hasn’t helped anything.

I wasn’t the only one who thought this was blatant pandering. One News Now reported that evangelicals have come out denouncing the forum, saying that it made the Democratic candidates appear to be too in line with evangelical philosophies.

One also has to wonder if Sojourners will be sponsoring the Republican forum on faith. I can’t imagine that the Republicans want to appear that Progressive. My bet is on Rick Warren. Any other takers?

I was at Book Expo America yesterday. For those of you who don’t know what this is, Book Expo is a huge trade event and conference for the publishing industry. It’s a place where authors, publishers and promoters come together to sell books and get up to speed on the latest trends. Everyone from the biggest names (Alan Greenspan was giving the keynote, for example) to the smallest self-published authors are there.

In looking at the conference book, I noticed there was a session called, “Atheism:The rise of a new subcategory in religion.” It seems atheism is “hot.”

This all started a couple of years ago with Sam Harris’ The End of Faith, followed by Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Dennett’s Breaking the Spell. While these books set the stage for this new subcategory, atheism seems to now be hitting its stride some two years later. Recent additions to the category include Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Victor Stenger’s God:The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist, Nica Lalli’s Nothing: Something to Believe in and Hemant Mehta’s I Sold My Soul on eBay: Viewing Faith through an Atheist’s Eyes. Hitchens, of course, is getting the most press, because he is the most bombastic — as irritating in his way as the Christian right can be in theirs. (See coverage of a debate between Hitchens and Chris Hedges, author of American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America for a sense of his style.)

These books give outlet to the anger engendered by only hearing from the right when it comes to religion and politics. While I have not seen these authors (except Harris) on TV — yet — it is doubtful that they will get the air time afforded to religious talking heads. Sure, NPR is apt to book these authors, but not the larger TV news outlets — and certainly not with the same consistency as the opposition. A great example of why this is so can be seen in a piece ABC News did called “Atheists Battle Against Religion.” The very title suggests the underlying bias of the network against this content.

These books also have traction with audiences because almost daily we see suicide bombings in the name of one God or another. The call for reason to prevail is certainly a legitimate one.

My concern is, particularly with someone like Hitchens, that the message will be overshadowed by the theatrics. Most people posting on bulletin boards about Hitchens dismiss him as a has-been drunk. If promotion continues in this way, instead of opening up a new area of thought which Harris, Dawkins and Dennett did beautifully, atheism may just become the flavor of the month.