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Telling the World a ‘Big Story’: RD in Conversation with Karen Armstrong

By Laurie Patton

…. We often learn about God as children, at the same time as we learn about Santa Claus. But as we mature, our ideas about Santa Claus change and become more sophisticated, though our ideas about God can get stuck in an infantile mode and become thereby incredible. So in The Case for God I was trying to show that people in the premodern world would have found much of our God-talk today as frankly idolatrous, and that many modern theologians, such a…

House Health Care Bill Discriminates Against Religious Freedom

By Gordon D. Newby

…r own religious consciences and beliefs. Representative Bart Stupak’s last-minute abortion amendment, supported by the direct lobbying of some Roman Catholic bishops, will have the effect of removing the possibility of abortion from the American health care system, even in cases where the health and life of the mother is at risk. It goes beyond current law and practice, and inserts the theological views of a vocal religious minority as a roadblock…

New Book Stokes Fear of a Muslim Europe

By Bruce B. Lawrence

…se who resort to YouTube, it would be more advantageous to watch the 7 1/2 minute video “Muslim Demographics” than to read (or try to read) Caldwell’s screed. Though he is not financed by the Christian Right, his message is identical to that of the initiators, writers, and promoters of “Muslim Demographics.” The tagline, which precedes this grossly deterministic, shrilly casuistic video, declares: “Islam will overwhelm Christendom unless Christian…

Promise Keepers 2.0: Women and Jews Invited

By J. Terry Todd

…, the narrator declared, “The Jewish people are coming to Christ in record numbers.” The goal of some Christian Zionist and Messianic Jewish groups is the repatriation of all Jews to Israel, and the conversion of all Jews to Christ. Saturday afternoon’s sermons reflected those hopes. The Jewish humor of David Chernoff, one of the Messianic movement’s most prominent rabbis, fell flat when he addressed the crowd. The mostly gentile audience just did…

RDBook: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World: An Interview with Michelle Goldberg

By Mandy Van Deven

…mpromising the integrity of an indigenous organization’s work? There are a number of organizations that are really good at channeling aid to women working at the grassroots. The Global Fund for Women, for example, does amazing work. On a more macro scale, people in developed countries often have access to levers of power that people on the ground don’t. Agnes Pareyio’s story is instructive. She’s an amazing Masai woman in Kenya who runs a shelter…

New Report: Prop. 8 Was Parent-Approved

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ebuttal ad, released weeks later, proved to be effective and led to a last-minute fundraising boost — but it was too late. While white Democratic mothers—who had previously been supportive—were mostly those who abandoned their opposition to Prop. 8, the study showed fathers and voters between the ages of 30 and 49 also changed their minds. The research did not ask about religious affiliation but did show that many Latinos, especially women, grew i…

So Deep a Wound: Home, and the novels of Marilynne Robinson

By Garret Keizer

…higher heaven than the other. That is an easy line to toss off; it is an amazing thing to have a pair of novels convincingly mean. Robinson leads us to believe that the created existence of the characters is more important than anything else about them. Glory is undoubtedly speaking for the author when she says that she has “no certain notion what a soul is. She supposed it was not a mind or a self. Whatever they are. She supposed it was what the…

Israel Under Bush: The Islamophobia Years

By Joel Schalit

…al gestures toward peace in the Middle East, we also saw a remarkably high number of attacks on Islam, on Iran, and on Arab Americans. There was the Republican outing of Barack Obama as a ‘secret Muslim’ and the promotion of this theory to both elderly Jews and conservative Christians. One survey, released in October, showed that at a sizable portion of the Texas voters polled actually believed Obama to be a Muslim. The other glaring example was t…

Bad Karma: Life Lessons From Earl

By Anthony B. Pinn

…m and national loyalty. But this show, if extended beyond its immediate 30-minute airtime, projects a different posture: actions have consequences. Perhaps the United States, like Earl, must examine its conduct, recognize the web-like nature of human interactions, and acknowledge at least the possibility that the United States as a nation has not lived up to the best of its democratic ideals, has not represented in its internal practices and forei…

John McCain: No God But Country

By Kathryn Lofton

…five and half years, how trapped in solitary confinement he was allowed a minute or two outside on Christmas day, and how one guard looked him straight in the eye on that day (that holy day) and “drew with his sandal a cross in the ground.” In recent press events, this moment in Hanoi has become his road to Damascus, the tale told to shunt rumors of irreligion. Conversion narratives have become mandatory formulations in American politics, signali…