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Islam in Conflict with Democracy? A Response to Stanley Fish

By David True

…God with a special dignity worthy of respect. Such convictions should find free expression in the United States. On the particular question of Shari’ah, we have good reason to expect the overwhelming majority of American Muslims (as with other Americans) to respect individual rights. Moreover, they will do so, not in opposition to their faith, but as part of their striving to be good Muslims. This is not to suggest that every Muslim or even every…

A One-State Solution for Israel and Why It Will Work

By Haroon Moghul

…t tensions in Jerusalem are at their highest in years. It’s about time the United States joins the international community in expressing real, and consequential, disapproval of this state of affairs. The relationship between America and Israel isn’t one of alliance so much as one of patron and client. When we, as Americans, could be devoting time and energy to building cooperation around issues of national concern—climate change, for example—we ha…

Anti-Immigrant Fervor Is a Part of America’s Story

By Robert Bartholomew and Anja Reumschussel

…tute, the odds of being murdered by a refugee in a terrorist attack in the United States are an astronomical three-and-a-half billion to one. This Islamic scare is driven by fear, not facts. These examples of religious intolerance are testaments to the human propensity to create, believe, and spread salacious stories driven by longstanding stereotypes, rumors, and fear. When we give into our xenophobic fears, we risk redefining a religion as a cul…

Fake, Evil, Spiritual, Commodified; What’s the Truth About Popular Yoga?

By Andrea R. Jain

…a yoga—were also disliked by many mainstream populations from India to the United States, those who were interested in and engaged in physical techniques faced the harshest criticisms. Finally, Craddock’s construction of yoga is consistent with the history of modern yoga’s adaptation, assimilation, and syncretism. Craddock identified as a Unitarian but also as the pastor of the Church of Yoga. The fact that a woman could be so polymorphously relig…

Trump Pardons the Hammonds, Arsonists Who Inspired Bundy Standoff

By Megan Goodwin

…ndanger the lives of other Americans. This week, the 45th president of the United States pardoned Steven and Dwight Hammond. A statement issued on July 10th granted the Hammonds full clemency. There is no mention of Hammonds’ crimes—crimes that, were they committed by men of another race or religion, he would surely denounce as terrorism. Rather, the president calls the Hammonds’ sentences, which were handed down according to federal guidelines, “…

Is Religion Wrecking Our Air?

By Jay Wexler

…habi police have warned Eid celebrants not to use illegal fireworks in the United Arab Emirates. Even in the United States, some critics have called for the federal government to regulate fireworks, rather than exempting them from the ambit of the Clean Air Act. The EPA has refused, claiming that “Congress did not intend to require EPA to consider air-quality violations associated with such cultural traditions in regulatory determinations.” Althou…

The Critical Role of Jews in Defining Modernity

By Chad Alan Goldberg

…cultural pluralists of the early twentieth century. As immigration to the United States rose and its sources changed in those years, growing numbers of Americans began to call for the exclusion or coercive “Americanization” of new immigrants. In contrast, a small minority of dissenting intellectuals—Randolph Bourne, John Dewey, Alain Locke, Horace Kallen, and a few others—promoted the doctrine of cultural pluralism, a view with roots in the Ameri…

An Independence Day Sermonette

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…with the “blessed” social order and setting it up as the arbiter of human freedom within history is just what Barth is talking about. In this way, Barth asserts, we create a “criminal arrogance of religion.” This arrogance, the equating of our own desires with the desires of God, leads to an inverted set of values. We see “blessings” as material goods—wealth, health, cars, homes, and power. Those who are poor and disenfranchised are definitely n…

Did Romney Cynically Cite His Mormon Faith for Impeachment Vote as Critics Claim?

By Daniel Schultz

…the revelation which tells us that God established the Constitution of the United States, “That every man may act … according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment. “Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another. “And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land.” (D&C 101:78–80.) In other words, whatever opinion…

Religious Freedom Manifesto Calls for Compromise and Civility—What’s So Wrong With That?

By Frederick Clarkson

…ons. These denominations, the Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Methodist Church, and United Church of Christ, have been leading members of the 38 member communions of the National Council of Churches. Mainline leaders recognize that Religious Freedom Institute leaders, Executive Director Kent Hill, Chairman Thomas F. Farr, and signatory neoconservative Catholic Robert P. George have all played leadership roles in the neoconserva…