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Aasif Mandvi on Islamophobia, Acting, and the Long Shadow of Jon Stewart

By Haroon Moghul

…g position. A lot of people in my generation turned to Jon Stewart for the news, and so they turned to you as a Muslim voice. They look at you as a spokesperson for Muslims. Do you then feel any responsibility to speak for Muslims? Does it limit you, or pressure you, in any way? It’s not a responsibility that I chose to take on. It’s something that happened in the culture because there are so few Muslim voices, so few faces, so little representati…

The Year of the Abusive Priest

By Anthea Butler

…he hierarchy (saying the Pope is the “leader in purification, reform and renewal that the church so very much needs” or, “the Pope’s letter to Irish Catholics was courageous”) is the language of a dying institution. These are people who trade in words, who argue incessantly in ecumenical dialogues about a word’s meaning. The problem is, the Vatican and its minions haven’t figured out that we are past the days of the monastic scribe, slowly chiseli…

An Unholy Holy Week: Is the All-Male Rule of the Roman Catholic Church Self-Destructing?

By Anne Eggebroten

…rch history,” declares the National Catholic Reporter in an editorial. The New York Times, which broke the story of abuse at the deaf school in Wisconsin, quotes a priest in Berlin as saying the crisis is “the worst in 100 years or more.” They Act Like They Don’t Believe in God It’s not that the faithful are leaving the Church—for the most part, they aren’t. It’s that the hierarchy itself is cracking. “What I would like to see is actually Christia…

What Do ‘The Christians’ Believe? Easter Reflections from a Non-Christian

By Gary Laderman

…l action. Yet both sides look to Jesus Christ for guidance about health in American society. What do the Christians believe? For many, rap and hip hop are the devil’s music with no redeeming features. But the growing number of artists and outlets for Christian rap (like the Web site Holy Culture) are challenging many stereotypes and perceptions about how entertainment and evangelization mix to bring a distinctly Christian message to young folks to…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…big tent approach to coverage of American ir/a/religion. But do the Gallup numbers point to new ways we might be thinking about business as usual? Two findings are striking. First: Gallup reported that although Americans felt religion’s influence was declining, many—75 percent—agreed that more religion would be positive for the country. Not surprisingly, churchgoers were most gung-ho about religion’s beneficial impact. But “over half of those who…

8: The Mormon Proposition Gets It Right

By Joanna Brooks

…have dismissed the film as blatantly false. But what I’m hearing from a number of Mormons deeply familiar with the Proposition 8 campaign is that the film gets it mostly right. [See also Holly Welker’s review here. – Eds] Some take exception to editing choices that sequence events out of context for dramatic effect; others wish that the filmmakers had not been so cartoonish in their depictions of anti-gay-marriage standpoints, using only notori…

Haiti and the Push for Theological Questions

By Paula M. Cooey

…tic or atheistic view, however well known it may be, is not shared by most Americans. “Repent, the end of the world is at hand.” Less known are the clerical responses of the time, which were numerous. Charles and John Wesley (the latter considered the founder of the Methodist movement) preached many sermons on the earthquake. According to Methodist minister Ann Bracket, the Wesley brothers saw the Lisbon earthquake in terms of the biblically-preor…

Diplomatic Suckerhood: Why Israel Is Fighting Toward its Own Demise

By Ira Chernus

…etrayed the same sense of anxiety about weakness when he complained to the New York Times that with the Obama administration “focusing solely on settlement building and not on what the Arab countries should also be doing for peace, Israel felt that it was being driven to its knees and delivered to the other side.” That’s a bizarre exaggeration. In fact, the administration is also focusing on what the Arab countries should be doing: moving toward n…

Another Manufactured Outrage: Rep. Ilhan Omar Did Nothing Wrong in Listing Hamas, Israel, and U.S. Together

By Joshua Shanes

…yor of violence in the world today.” Of course, he was also called an anti-American domestic enemy for doing so. I saw many people laugh at Hamas’s complaint about being compared to America, and while America is a democracy and Hamas is a terrorist organization, Americans might consider our own history. The shock of Trump praising Putin in 2017 and defending himself saying “You think [America] is so innocent” was offensive because of his celebrati…

The 17th Century Roots of Roy Moore’s Refusal to Concede the Election

By Karen E. Park

…hn Winthrop, first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony did. Winthrop knew that the Puritans were the new Israel, chosen by God for a special “errand.” His famous “City upon a Hill” language, itself taken from the Gospel of Matthew 5:14, and later cribbed by Ronald Reagan, comes from a letter he wrote on the ship Arbella just before coming ashore in New England. This letter was not a document touting the religious freedom and democracy the new…