Religion Dispatches
…Hindu” by Prema Kurien. Yet the aftermath of 9/11 has made the process of Americanization different for American Muslims. What, months ago, Sarah called the utter ordinariness of demeaning Islam has turned into full-blown, ugly bigotry (and that includes both Qur’an burnings as well as efforts around the country to prohibit the building of mosques). Today my friend and colleague Parvez Ahmed, who has, himself, been attacked by anti-Muslim activis…
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…of government via policies that would drastically change the landscape of American governance and, as the document says, “bend or break the bureaucracy to the President’s will.” Calling for the abolishment of the Department of Education, Project 2025 would roll back (if not eliminate) civil rights protections for LGBTQ students in publicly funded schools. While the language may be different, this massive shift away from federal regulation aligns…
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Sharon Slater, American anti-gay activist and president of Family Watch International, recently encouraged delegates attending a law conference in Lagos, Nigeria to resist the United Nations’ calls to decriminalize homosexuality. Keynoting the Nigerian Bar Association Conference, Slater told delegates that they would lose their religious and parental rights if they supported “fictitious sexual rights.” One such “fictitious right” is the right to…
Read More…ifficult to see how this applies to the conservative religious view of the American story: The golden age begins with a founding agreement between the Christian God and the American people. When the people fall away from the covenant, God punishes them by withdrawing his blessings and unleashing his wrath. To win back God’s grace, the people must return to the covenant. In fact, the CART narrative is all over American history: The trope is old and…
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…m the popular narrative. King’s legacy has been appropriated in service to American exceptionalism and Christian supremacy. In essence, to be a real Christian and real American is to be like the mythic King. In the years after King’s assassination, his opponents (and some allies) were relegated to the category of the “scribes and Pharisees.” Useful props to deploy to demonstrate the superiority of King’s approach of nonviolent resistance and integ…
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…07 before turning the gun on himself; Jiverly Wong, a Buddhist, Vietnamese American who killed 13 people (himself included) and wounded four in Binghamton, New York in 2009; John Allen Muhammad, the Islamic, African American “Beltway Sniper,” who, with Jamaica-born partner Lee Boyd Malvo, killed at least 10 people in the Washington DC area through the month of October 2002. Many of these shooters, regardless of race or religion, had known mental h…
Read More…and theological subterfuge. The group is a strategic reincarnation of the American Anglican Council of Washington, a chapter of the American Anglican Council (AAC), the national body created in 1996 to oversee congregations that split with the Episcopal Church. As an organization independent of the Episcopal church, the AAC and its affiliates would have not have standing in the church to bring disciplinary charges. Trustees of the AFF have been a…
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…S. Boyer, author of When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture, suggests that religious views about biblical prophecy in the United States have “always had an enormous, if indirect and underrecognized, role [in] shaping public policy.” If the message of apocalyptic demonization is not clear, try reading one of the novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins in their Left Behind series of Christian apocalyptic novels whic…
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…pped even more spectacularly than their many previous ones, Israel and its American friends have tended to focus on practicalities: money, boundaries, resources… and settlements. American maps may show the Golan as part of Syria, but every year, more Israeli-owned vineyards are planted. To suddenly focus on symbolism is good for fundraising letters, but bad for actual policy. In this case, at least, symbolism has prevailed. Because it is only a bu…
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…cus on the profound similarity. Both are based on the firm belief that the American electorate regards its suffrage as a thing for sale. Both are based on that time-honored American political tradition of buying votes. You know, people have tried to accuse me of having messianic pretensions. But here is the proof that I am not “the one you’re waiting for.” The true messiah of American politics will be the candidate who is willing to say that enjoy…
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