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Prophetic Counterterrorism: Avoiding the Insanity of Repeated Failure
The secular world, in confronting evil, has long relied on one solution: the use of coercive power to violently incapacitate those who do evil—often with “collateral damage.” Maybe it’s time to explore other options?
Two Wars and No Peace in Sight: The Role of Faith-Based Pacifism
When it comes to peace activism, holding signs might not always be enough, says sociologist Sharon Nepstad. In this interview she explains why, and talks about the unique historical role of religion in nonviolent protest.
Words Matter: The Linguistic Damage of “Going Muslim”
The etymological ethnic bias of the phrase “going Muslim,” used to refer to the massacre at Fort Hood, is as damaging as it is inaccurate.
Stupak Forming Fault Lines in Left-Leaning Faith Groups?
With left-leaning faith groups unable to agree on abortion issues, the religious right—with the help of anti-choice Democrats—were able to convince Democratic strategists that they spoke for people of faith. Will the inability to take a strong stance for women’s rights split religious coalitions?
House Health Care Bill Discriminates Against Religious Freedom
Abortion is not a liberal, secular invention; there are examples in Jewish, Muslim, and even Christian theologies—and in Buddhist and Hindu traditions—of instances in which abortion is justified.
Muslim Students Shocked By Professor’s Column
An NYU professor suggests in Forbes that we refer to tragedies like the one at Ft. Hood as “Going Muslim.” An NYU alumnus, himself a Muslim, finds himself shocked, not so much by the article, as by the response of the school administration.
Spinning Ft. Hood
RD associate editor Hussein Rashid scrutinizes a cross-section of reactions to the Ft. Hood massacre, from those eager to blame Islam to a number of Muslim-Americans.
Bad Religion Leaves Big Bruises: When Christians Threaten Health Care Reform
Two strands of Christianity battle against a bill ensuring that all Americans are cared for. One prefers John Locke to Jesus while the other has its issues with women.
Are US Bishops Responsible for Anti-Abortion Amendment in Health Care Reform?
As so many pundits ask whether it was the 11th-hour activism of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops that enabled the anti-choice provision to be inserted into the health care bill, our analyst explores a different possibility: Democratic strategy.
Politics, Not Religion, At Heart of Health Care Reform Wrangle on Abortion
Despite repeated compromises from pro-choice Democrats, anti-choice Dems threaten to kill health care reform unless all their demands are met.
Suicide Bombers and the Prozac God: A Review of Dying for Heaven
A new work advancing a radical theory of the motivation behind suicide bombers is almost bizarrely off the mark. Stitching together thought and observation from disparate and often dissonant sources, Georgetown theology professor Ariel Glucklich’s book would be laughable were he not a consultant to the defense community.
Reverend Billy For Mayor: Is He For Real?
Performance artist or man of God? Agitator or politician? The Church of Life After Shopping’s Reverend Billy has a choir and a congregation like a preacher—does he have to be a “real” clergyman to minister to the masses?
Escalating Afghanistan: What Did You Do in the Class War, Daddy?
Don’t the clergy have a duty to challenge the march of folly in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right
President Obama averages 30 death threats per day, preachers pray publicly for his death, and right-wing pundits speak openly of military coups. Dave Neiwert, author of The Eliminationists, gives some insight into the relationship between extreme rhetoric and acts of violence.
A Pagan Republican Comes Out of the Broom Closet
Aspiring New York City councilman Dan Halloran is a practicing Neopagan, more specifically a Heathen, devoted to the religious practices and beliefs of early Northern Europe. But the oddest thing of all, to many people, is that he’s not an anti-war, enviro-activist, free-loving liberal—he’s a Republican.
Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided Explores the Dark Side of Positive Thinking
A new book reveals the historical roots and conservative uses of the positive thinking movement, showing how it encourages victim-blaming, political complacency, and a culture-wide flight from realism.
National Association of Evangelicals Supports Immigration Reform, But Elsewhere Discord Reigns
Major religious leaders support immigration reform while a think tank argues that “loving thy neighbor” is relative. When we remember that real people’s lives are at stake, the moral landscape becomes clear.
Burying the Future: Youth Violence in Chicago
The problem of children slain in urban America is usually considered an inner-city crisis, isolated from the larger social sphere. But once you know about it, or see it up close, you see it everywhere.
How Mormonism Built Glenn Beck
Some are familiar with Glenn Beck’s teary Mormon conversion story, but what many are not aware of is the extent to which Mormonism has given Beck key elements of his on-air personality and messaging—and how it may shape the future of American conservatism.
A Great Gulf Fixed: Implications of the Vanishing Religious Middle
Results of a new poll show that in matters of religion the right and left are in different universes. Why, then, are progressives so insistent on finding common ground?