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American Jewish Leaders Get Gaza Wrong

By Sarah Posner

…s Haaretz reports this morning, Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin was close to negotiating a cease-fire with Hamas. The Israeli government knew it, but assassinated its leader Ahmed Jabari anyway: Baskin told Haaretz on Thursday that senior officials in Israel knew about his contacts with Hamas and Egyptian intelligence aimed at formulating the permanent truce, but nevertheless approved the assassination. “I think that they have made a strateg…

Mormonism’s “9/11 Mosque Moment”

By Joanna Brooks

…olleague Hussein Rashid pointed out in this must-read piece), Mormons, the number two most disliked religion in America, have no business contributing to public rage against the number one most disliked religion in America. Nor in trafficking in falsehoods like “Islam is an ideology, not a religion,” a line I’ve been hearing from a few Mormons in recent days. Islam is in fact a religion for which Mormon leaders from the time of George A. Smith…

Magic in the Air: How Intellectuals Invented the Myth of a Mythless Society

By Jason Josephson Storm

…I ended up eliminating rough chapters on French social theory, American philosophy, Japanese accounts of Western Esotericism, and German Monist Leagues. One of the hardest bits to cut was a short section on the American philosopher William James. Probably everybody has heard of his importance in the history of pragmatism and psychology, but it is a little less well-known that he was extensively involved in paranormal research—investigating spirit…

Hobby Lobby: Key to a More Liberal and Less Religious America?

By Rebecca Sager

…nt, compared to 37% of Gen Xers and 50% of the Silent Generation. Though a number of studies have found that young people were leaving the church because they saw them as intolerant places, it’s unlikely that the conservative religious actors behind the anti-gay rights law that just passed in Mississippi and the Hobby Lobby case realize that their actions are part of—and perhaps a causal source—of this growing disenchantment. While the consequence…

Faith-Based Bailout Part 3

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…t markets. The subtext of story number one, which will likely become story number two in the next day or so, is the partisan sniping that has already consumed the issue. A conservative core of House Republicans now claim, with a semi-straight face, that a partisan floor speech from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi actually turned them against a bill they came prepared to vote for. The speech “was” partisan—in the extreme, and far too much so for my tast…

Religious Leaders Need ‘Empty the Pews’ Which Chronicles the Darker Side of the ‘Nones’ Phenomenon

By Kaya Oakes

…for patterns in the stories of Nones or post-religious adults might look closely at why such similarities exist. Many of the contributors are queer, which reflects the damage—or “nurtured insanity,” as Frank Schaeffer calls it in his foreword—fundamentalist Christianity has done to queer people just based on the number who have left. But it also demonstrates why Christian denominations that trot out their “welcoming and affirming” credentials may…

Bonnaroo 3: With a Buzz in Our Ears

By E. David Morgen

…roup of Birmingham college students who had been persuaded by one of their number that this was worth the wait. It was. It is hard to describe the experience of standing in the second row of a rock concert, untold numbers at your back, without sounding trite. In a world in which it is possible to conduct nearly all communication via one machine or another, to travel from one climate-controlled setting to the next without exchanging so much as a mo…

Bonnaroo Dispatches: Stages

By E. David Morgen

…at even though she does not actively proselytize, she has had a surprising number of conversations about her faith during her time at Bonnaroo. “The people here are trying to fill themselves up with something.” When she tells that she believes “there is a spiritual war going on right now,” we ask her which side Bonnaroo is on. Neither, she says. As the yoga proceeds behind us, she says that the experiences people have at Bonnaroo can be a step in…

A Match Made in Hell: Demons Have Become a Serious Force in US Politics — But We’ve Seen This Show Before

By Michael E. Heyes

…lculations, one-third of evangelicals don’t vote, and when you factor this number against the number of votes needed to tip battleground states like Pennsylvania, there’s not much convincing that needs to be done to turn the election for Trump. It might seem like a small affair, until you realize that JD Vance was one of the speakers at the Courage Tour event in Pennsylvania. Predictably, demonic rhetoric underlies a lot of the Tour. From what I’v…

The War Within: Religion and Our Tangled Relationship with Our Bodies

By Michelle Lelwica

…and probably lack control (and are thus morally weaker human beings); that losing weight is a good strategy for becoming more fit. I suspect that challenging these assumptions may trigger some readers’ disbelief—a disbelief that’s rooted in an even bigger misconception that good health is a personal achievement (in the book, I suggest that good health involves both personal and social responsibility). In the end, I call for a more nuanced approach…