Religion Dispatches
…n the world, cannot resort to debating which interpretation of the text is best, as though the texts exist independent of the people who read them. So Islam can be violent, and so can Christianity. Thankfully other Muslims and Christians want to say that those folks are not “really Muslim,” or “really Christian.” But if all we have is that which scholars call “insider discourse,” then conversations across religious divides become, at worst, dising…
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…always emphasized that we should tell faith-promoting stories and put the best spin on everything. I think the consequences of that can be devastating for individuals full of flaws and trying to reckon with their own stories. When I think about the girl I was—I was a thief, I was stealing things, I was having an affair—but in truth I was a very human, flawed, striving, seeking young woman. For a long time, I stole things in my life. And I really…
Read More…Muhammad knew that people were making things up and created checks and the best methodology that they could at the time to stop it. Modern scholars are revisiting the existing corpus with new tools and methods. Why a famous mosque inscription may refer not to Muhammad but, astonishingly, to Jesus. Stumped by this one. No idea what it refers to. How the oldest records referring to a man named Muhammad bear little resemblance to the now-standard Is…
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…ince many people to become atheists. But that’s not the point. Instead, at best, Atheos is an instructive tool for non-believers to reflect on their own positions more critically and thoughtfully. Atheos is structured as a gamified set of questions and answers inspired by the Socratic method. Users open the app and make their way through “Cave Levels,” each of which present you with hypothetical scenarios, discussions, and encounters with people o…
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…he American Political Science Association’s 2020 Ralph J. Bunche Award for best scholarly work exploring ethnic and cultural pluralism, and co-winner of the award for best book on race and ethnic politics. Myisha Cherry: Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, Myisha is also the Director of the Emotion and Society Lab. Her research is primarily concerned with the role of emotions and attitudes in public life….
Read More…those young people will experience. The booklet has been designated as a “Best Practice” resource for suicide prevention—the only one of its kind for LDS people—by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. I spoke with Dr. Caitlin Ryan of the Family Acceptance Project at SFSU about the research and the reasoning behind this groundbreaking resource. I noticed that in the booklet you characterize hom…
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…ion had few misgivings about the rightness of chattel slavery. Their ranks numbered legendary compromiser Henry Clay of Kentucky and planter-statesmen John Randolph and Richard Bland Lee of Virginia. Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, was so named in 1824 to honor another slavery-supporting Southerner who happened to occupy the White House at the time: President James Monroe. And while some early proponents of colonization, like William Lloyd Garrison,…
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…nation in distress and claiming that evangelical Christianity can not only best explain the crisis, but save us from our demise. Is there anything you had to leave out? For a long time I considered writing an addendum about post-purity evangelicals. This is a concept introduced by Abigail Rine who wrote in The Atlantic about the growing number of evangelicals and former evangelicals who’ve been recounting their experiences with sexual purity. Many…
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…ntisemitic act, is thus interpreted as if it is by definition insincere at best, trickery at worst. Acknowledging the good the NOI has done in helping single Black women and incarcerated Black men doesn’t matter because acknowledging the legitimacy of an antisemite, even regarding things that have nothing whatsoever to do with Jews, puts one in his camp. Antisemitism is no longer a descriptor of behavior, but a tool of exclusion. This controversy,…
Read More…to bomb two synagogues in New York, since, according to one suspect, “the best target” — the World Trade Center — “was hit already.” The disturbing calculus of these men can only be understood in the context of hatred, ignorance, stereotypes, and bad theology. The best antidote to this plot – and future plots like it – is more interfaith activity. We are not naïve enough to think that simply knowing folks across lines of faith will prevent violen…
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