Religion Dispatches
…his Mormonism is not one of them. Harris-Perry wants to draw a clear line between evaluating a candidate and analyzing a candidate’s faith. In a lecture at the Danforth Center this fall, E.J. Dionne proposed a different solution: limit discussions of candidate’s faith to how this faith might influence his or her political perspective and policies. This would not include sacred underwear, seventy virgins, or transubstantiation. It does however inc…
Read More
…9/11, Armageddon-anxious evangelicals have focused more on Russia’s Middle Eastern allies than Gog itself. Tim LaHaye, co-author of the best-selling Left Behind series, and Ed Hindson, Dean Emeritus of the divinity school at Liberty University, devoted much of their 2007 book Global Warning to framing Iran as an evil Islamic threat to Israel, and through Israel to Christianity. Like other evangelical apocalypticists such as Joel Rosenberg (author…
Read More
…ran spent most of his life and career outside of the country of his birth. Between his last visit to Lebanon in 1910 and his untimely death in 1931, Gibran was for all intents and purposes American, part of a thriving immigrant community in first Boston and then New York, where he lived, painted, and wrote in a studio apartment on East 10th Street. Adapting Gibran’s most famous book into a narrative film won’t be easy, which is why it hasn’t been…
Read More
…this view, has no intention of attacking Iran and starting another Middle East war, but it is willing to go to the brink to get the U.S. to act—and to act before the November elections. The Rabbinic consultation story broke over the weekend when a reporter for an Orthodox Jewish website Kikar HaShabbat wrote that Netanyahu’s emissary, National Security Chief Yaakov Amidor, met with the 91-year-old Rabbi on Friday afternoon. The choice of Rabbi Y…
Read More
…ization of Salvadoran archbishop Óscar Romero; they thought he would speak better to Pope Francis’s commitment to the poor, the marginalized, and the migrant he spoke of before Congress on Thursday morning. Other friends posted about Native and mixed-race Americans who lived under the complicated legacies of Catholic-supported colonialism. They would remind readers that the dominant Catholicism of this hemisphere is not undertaken by worshippers o…
Read More
…nal conversation? My friendships with Muslims have changed my life for the better, and so of course I would like to encourage others to pursue both cross-cultural and interfaith relationships. But the real truth of it is that the best way to “reach” Muslims (to crib my old evangelical language) is to clean up our own house. Conservative Christianity (that is directly linked with conservative politics) has been so incredibly damaging to the work of…
Read More
…who offer guests gifts of sihir (a mild stimulant common in South and Southeast Asia, also known as betel or pan; it is a nut wrapped in leaves and chewed, but not swallowed, and it stains the teeth bright red.) Sirih is an acquired taste and a gift that can not be refused. Accepting it is a gesture of peace and a sign of respect. It was not refused by any of the 300 in attendance. Most of the evening was devoted to prayer and ritual. The first wa…
Read More
…an outright poisonous influence at worst. During the Second World War, at least one psychiatrist worried that radio soaps were undermining the war morale, distracting women with addictive stories that promoted destructive values. To label something a “soap opera” today still implies that what you are describing involves immature behavior, improbable plot twists, and/or unseemly sexual liaisons. Soap opera fans themselves have consistently been cha…
Read More
…ratic perception. Demographics aren’t the perfect determinant, but they’re better than any other determinant we have. The most important consequence? Because America has Muslims, America is a Muslim-minority nation. That means America is as much a part of a global Muslim conversation as any other society. But that’s not the greatest change Obama has indicated. Through the president’s strategy, America has given herself the right to participate in…
Read More
…xologist who’s always been close to Belinda; and—last but by no means not least—Jennie, a feisty part-Japanese granddaughter of a wealthy church couple who basically purchased Jennie’s participation in the search by making a large special gift just as the congregation’s president was starting to float names for the committee. You can easily guess at least part of what ensues when the search committee gets going. Despite a year of careful preparati…
Read More