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American Jewish Leaders Get Gaza Wrong

By Sarah Posner

…ed by the Israeli military into Gaza have been responsible for the death of 108 Palestinians, of which 15 where women or children, and the injury of 468 Palestinians, of which 143 where women or children. The methods by which these causalities were inflicted by Israeli projectiles breaks down as follows: 57 percent, or 310, were caused by Israeli aircraft missile fire; 28 percent, or 150, where from Israeli live ammunition; 11 percent, or 59, were…

America, Religious Values, and the Death Penalty; Or, If it Was Good Enough for Jesus and Socrates…

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…with the IV tubes already inserted in his arms (Autry was later executed on 14 March 1984). This seemed to suggest that states no longer needed to worry about cruel and unusual punishment. On 15 December 1983, John Eldon Smith was executed in Georgia; his wife was also sentenced to death in this case, but she was not executed. This seemed to indicate that states no longer needed to worry about untrammeled discretion. And on 2 November 1984, Velma…

The Sacred and the Dead: Three Ways to American Beauty

By Aaron K. Kerr

…ty by way of sound, and pursuing what had been the norm of civilization for 1700 years prior to the modern period— an openness to mystery and the transcendent, consulting the spirits and exorcising the demons of the times: individualism, instrumental reason, and conformity. The corporate machinery of modernity persists in its seduction, as has its attendant impulse to war and violence. Perhaps we need to continue to explore linguistic alternatives…

I Volunteer to Root Out Christian Extremism

By Peter Laarman

…600 CHC spotters to cover the 330,000 Christian congregations of fewer than 1,000 members. I recommend that we add another 1,400 spotters who would work exclusively to monitor the 8,000 congregations that have more than 1,000 people in their ranks. These big congregations obviously want extra surveillance. That’s 8,000 passionate people at federal law enforcement’s disposal, and I think that this is a realistic number to get started. But I would a…

Evangelicals Struggle With the Role of Churches in Society

By Omri Elisha

…rns for the welfare of society, many conservative evangelicals harbor deep reservations about supporting any programs that seem to deprioritize evangelism or run the risk of becoming too liberal or too secular. Socially engaged evangelicals counteract those concerns by insisting that faith-based activism can ideally be a vehicle for greater evangelism, not a distraction from it. But they often face strong ideological resistance and logistical cons…

The Pope’s Interfaith Issues

By Hussein Rashid

A couple of weeks ago The New York Times reported that the Pope has reservations about interfaith dialogue. There are few different ways to understand this pronouncement. Pope Benedict, as both Pope and Cardinal Ratzinger, has never seemed inclined to interfaith dialogue, or interfaith understanding. My own superficial reading of his work indicates a reluctant support of Vatican II. On one level, the Pope is forced into participating in interfait…

Excerpt: The Christian Roots of Zionism

By Shalom Goldman

…n the United States, The Fundamentals, a series of essays published between 1910 and 1915 by conservative evangelical theologians, emphasized the necessity to believe in the literal truth of scripture. This helped reify the relationship between the Jews of the present and the Israelites of old. In the view of many in the Christian West, Palestine was understood to be ‘‘empty,’’ and this emptiness should be filled by Jews, the descendants of the la…

Web 8.0: The Return of the Human

By Beatrice Marovich

…w religion” or the “nerd religion” of cybernetics. He’s troubled by techno-spiritualities like the Singularity—the quest for an etherealized digital promised land. With the rhetorical flourish of a biblical prophet he charges, in his bestseller You Are Not a Gadget (2010), that our technology has begun to dominate us. What we should be demanding, he argues, is that it bow to our needs and desires. What he despises most about today’s “cybernetic to…

By the Way: Fractured Religious Right Endorses McCain

By Randall Balmer

…of discussion, and to no one’s surprise, the group decided to shelve their reservations about John McCain and endorse him in the fall campaign. “The alternative is so bad,” Phyllis Schlafly declared, “we must support John McCain.” The meeting was called by Mathew Staver, dean of the law school at Liberty University. Those in attendance included Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values in Ohio, Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther Ki…

Unmasking the Intention Behind the “Unmasking” of Obama

By Nicky Loomis

…week, 13 percent of registered voters said Obama is a Muslim, compared with 12 percent in June and 10 percent in March. What’s more, the study found that only half of Americans polled know for certain that Obama is a Christian. The religious mudslinging becomes a political tool to disguise underlying racism towards the candidate—a tactic that Kristof calls an attempt to “de-Americanize” Obama. Journalist Marty Kaplan described this “de-Americaniza…