The 1960s Gospel Hit That Defined a Genre and an Era

Recorded in the Wake of the Birmingham Bombing, the Faith-Fueled Power of ‘Peace Be Still’ Endures Today

“Peace Be Still,” a six-minute-long hymn, swept gospel radio in 1963.

Recorded just four days after the devastating bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, it became an instant classic, selling nearly a million copies to an overwhelmingly Black audience over the next decade.

Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 and the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress in 2004, “Peace Be Still”—the title track on a collaboration between the Angelic Choir of the First Baptist Church of Nutley, New Jersey, and the “King …

How Jewish Was Stanley Kubrick?

The Director of 2001 and Eyes Wide Shut Had the ‘Aura of a Talmudic Scholar’ and Favored Plots Dealing With Cultural Outsiders

Many people are surprised to discover that legendary director Stanley Kubrick—whose masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey is 50 years old this year—was Jewish. He rarely spoke of it, his films …

The Modesto Girls are a Family Miracle

How Five Sisters (and Their Brothers) Survived Childhood and Stuck Together in Stanislaus County

California changes too fast. The new so quickly replaces the old. People come and go with a blur. I often feel like you can’t count on anything staying here anymore.

But …

O Ye of Little Faith in Los Angeles! Eric Garcetti Has a Message For You.

If the Mayor of the City of Angels Wants to Be President, His Campaign Should Be a Moral Crusade

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is being coy about whether he’s running for president. But he doesn’t fool me. I’ve already written the speech, or perhaps I should say sermon, …

The Monster That Stoked Americans’ Devotion to Faith Over Science

How a New York Farmer's Elaborate Hoax "Proved" Giants Roamed the Earth

One Sunday afternoon in October of 1869, Stubb Newell, a farmer in upstate New York, invited his neighbors over to view the remarkable discovery he made while digging a …

Even Godless Hipsters Love the Stigmata

From Medieval Manuscripts to Burning Man, We Use Art to Get Closer to the Sacred

The yearning for intimacy with the sacred remains as potent today as it was in medieval days, when art was preoccupied almost entirely with depicting the divine. Last night’s spirited …