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Good Hair, Good God! The Divine Politics of African-American Hair

By Anthea Butler

…the church mothers and pastors’ wives. Lighter skin, straighter hair, and European features became a precious commodity within a closed religious system; darker-skinned, kinky-haired women could look forward to becoming the head of the usher board, but never a vaunted evangelist or pastor’s wife. Although I would have loved to talk about this within the confines of my book, the pictures of bishops, their wives, and other pastoral couples left me…

Prison as Resurrection

By Caleb Smith

…cesses including “civil death,” a loss of legal personhood with origins in European monasticism. The Philadelphia reformer Benjamin Rush quoted scripture in describing the rehabilitated convict as a man who “was lost and is found—was dead and is alive.” My book is animated by my fascination with this resurrection plot and all of its contradictions. Of course there are also personal kinds of inspiration. When I started writing it, in graduate schoo…

Clueless in Gaza

By Shalom Goldman

…el, a younger state, there is a tradition of political engagement that its European founders brought with them to Palestine. As in Europe and Latin America, Israel’s most prominent writers are also public intellectuals, and some of them have voiced passionate objection to their government’s actions; most recently against the attack on the flotilla. But the main reason we don’t hear dissident Israeli voices is that there are many powerful forces wh…

Why Obama for the Nobel? A Nudge? A Reminder?

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…n the former Soviet Union. It was the opening of a door, a path, to fuller European-ness, with the requisite economic and political reforms. The came Yeltsin. Then came Putin. And the dream died. The record of none of these frankly political Nobel decisions is positive. None of the political issues on which the Nobel committees intended to weigh-in have swung in the directions they desired. And that is a cautionary tale for progressive politics to…

The Arab, the Feds and the Flood: Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun Rescues America

By Haroon Moghul

…ges, under piercing white lights that could floodlight the sun. We see the best of America in an Arab, and the worst of America in the government. Eggers takes us inside Abdulrahman Zeitoun (known to friends and family as “Zeitoun”), a charming can-do contractor-cum-entrepreneur who seems to know nothing but the dignity of work and the help of all. He is the American dream come true, an immigrant everyman who happens to have a funny name, a hero w…

What We Really Talk About When We Talk About Health Care

By Douglas Harrison

…ertaking the once dominant position so long occupied by Americans of Anglo-European descent and committed to a conservative Christian worldview. This point of view is fast becoming what Williams called a “residual” culture, and history provides scant evidence of anyone quietly surrendering to that particular fate. In this context, there are few issues as capable as health care of accommodating so many of the conspiracy theories, myths, and figment…

Muslims Are Not the Only Group Endangered By Hate

By Shabana Mir

…roups are no longer quite fringe. These developments are disturbing to all Europeans, not just to Muslims. Because the doors of hatred do not operate singly. One door of hatred opens multiple doors. Non-Muslim immigrants and minorities should not reassure themselves that the focus on Muslims and their clothes will work to their advantage. This focus will not keep the damage limited to “only” Muslims. To minority groups, tolerance and acceptance ma…

Angels & Demons: America’s Preeminent Pop Theologian Takes on Religion and Science

By Nathan Schneider

…saac Newton and, more soberly, Thomas Jefferson. Much of 19th-century Anglophone theology stood in awe of what zoology could teach about God’s creation. Until Darwin. Since The Origin of Species appeared in 1859, there’s been little use hoping for convergence. Europe has fallen for secular scientism, and the United States for semi-closeted creationism. The best one can expect is a habitable truce. So where is Dan Brown’s confidence coming from? De…

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…

Osama and Orientalism: Where Islamophobes Meet Al-Qaeda

By Hussein Rashid

…for “Reform,” give no credit to the scholars, and thereby marginalize the best bulwark against the spread of his extremism. Clearly neo-Orientalism has a negative impact not only on the Muslim community, but on the community subscribing to it. One example is the fact that Muslims have come out in large numbers to condemn violent extremism of every group perpetuating it. Every time someone asks “Why don’t Muslims condemn terrorism?” it is the resu…