Religion Dispatches
…tion to Allah. I also like the way he refers to our Prophet Muhammad. I think, the problem we used to have with being referred to as Mohammedans was only to clarify that we do not worship the Prophet. Because, in a way, what links us to other Muslims today is not just tawhid as much as it is that we follow the way of Muhammad. We are the ummah of Muhammad. According to the Qur’an, he will be a witness for us. And this makes me think, who is this P…
Read More
…ther such biblical warriors as David, Joshua, and Rahab as role models for today’s Christians. Prophet Kris Vallotton of the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding, California, for example, preached to children about, “Your Identity as Sons of God.” He got them to repeat after him in call and response style: “I am amazing. I am God’s greatest creation… I was born to do greater works than Jesus… and I have the mind of Christ. Therefore I…
Read More
…ege, and have written for mainstream Christian magazines like Christianity Today and Relevant. How would you describe your current relationship with evangelical Christianity, and how have these experiences living and working with refugees shaped that relationship? In some ways evangelicalism is just is a part of me, and I am comfortable using the insider language and in certain ways find it comforting to be around people who understand me in that…
Read More
…r she described herself as “white.” Though it makes us squirm in our seats today, clearly whiteness meant something different to her than it does to most of us today. Grappling with that reality is one of the challenges of the book. Is there a book out there you wish you had written? Which one? Why? There are hundreds! Let me name two. First’s there’s Jill Lepore’s The Name of War. It’s the book that is the most direct (I hope not derivative) infl…
Read More…tion to Allah. I also like the way he refers to our Prophet Muhammad. I think, the problem we used to have with being referred to as Mohammedans was only to clarify that we do not worship the Prophet. Because, in a way, what links us to other Muslims today is not just tawhid as much as it is that we follow the way of Muhammad. We are the ummah of Muhammad. According to the Qur’an, he will be a witness for us. And this makes me think, who is this P…
Read More
…it’s ready to reconsider the weight granted to legal claims of “religious freedom.” In a not-unexpected decision issued today in favor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Columbus, Missouri, seven justices concluded that a state program that reimbursed organizations which used scrap tire rubber to resurface playgrounds, but denied those grants to religious institutions, violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. The ruling itself, writte…
Read More
…nt masculinity to contemporary American evangelical culture, claiming that today’s devout have “replaced the Jesus of the gospels with an idol of machismo …” For some of the authors, the cultural and political commitments of many of today’s evangelicals have become so distasteful to their normative understanding of the faith as to render the term “evangelical” useless. As historian Thomas Kidd puts it in one of his reprinted essays, the invocation…
Read More…o criticized the verdict. “We are disappointed by the Federal Court ruling today to uphold the Appeals Court decision of March 2014 sentencing Mr. Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition leader, to five years in prison on charges of sodomy, a crime that should not exist under international human rights law,” he said in a statement. China: Alibaba marketing campaign promotes same-sex couples China’s social media behemoth Alibaba launched a marketing campaign…
Read More
…sident of the United States understands Christianity as a “get out of jail free” card used to freely exercise open bigotry, it can seem pretty conclusive that power has prevailed over justice. But consider some other words of Daniel Berrigan’s: “Redeem the times! The times are inexpressibly evil. Christians pay conscious, indeed religious tribute, to Caesar and Mars . . . And yet, and yet, the times are inexhaustibly good, solaced by the courage a…
Read More
…. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life—look positively angelic in relation to today’s big boys at Citi and Chase and Bank of America. At least Mr. Potter wanted his loans to be repaid. But in the new lending environment where there’s no limit on interest, today’s bankers would actually rather that borrowers don’t pay. They can collect far more in interest, not to mention in penalties and fees, from delinquent loans than from loans that are repaid. Ge…
Read More