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Book Burning and the Scapegoating of Islam

By Eric Reitan

…erings to supernatural powers. Rene Girard is a philosopher who is perhaps best known for an intriguing theory about the religious practice of sacrifice. Social life, for Girard, inevitably inspires violent impulses. But social life also requires that these impulses be suppressed. The solution is to direct those impulses toward a scapegoat—a victim, chosen on the basis of accessibility, who becomes the target of the society’s violence, thereby ena…

Is It the Job of Religion Journalists to Define “Religion”?

By Ann Taves

…t establishes a comprehensive way of life that is held out as the right or best way of life for those who adhere to it.” The key term is “comprehensive.” CrossFit, football, Star Trek, and dieting fads are insufficiently comprehensive to count as religion. Linker, recognizing that his definition would encompass philosophy, distinguishes between them based on the source of their knowledge regarding the best way of life: “religion,” he claims, “is t…

Conservative Anglican Bishops Threaten To Split Communion; Malawi Opposition Leader Says Gays Should Be Killed; Anti-Marriage Effort Makes European Union Question Initiative Process; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…this problem because sooner or later they are being released on bail. “The best way to deal with this problem is to KILL them! “It is pathetic to see our media houses parading these dogs on TV and newspapers hiding behind human rights — human rights my foot! The devil has no rights!” Catholic Church: Interview with Fired Gay Priest LGBT News Italia published an interview with Krzysztof Charamsa, the Polish priest who was forced out of his Vatican…

The Night of Power: Laylatul Qadri

By Amina Wadud

…try remembering to humble myself before the throne of the All mighty, the Bestower of favors, and go right on ahead and ask for what I want. That too shows love and trust. I trust that Allah will bring some repose, or grant a favor. I also have a little bit of concern over that: “be careful what you pray for.” Sometimes the consequences of one prayer’s answer are more troubles than you were facing. So, better to be prudent. I used to have a stick…

Ummah: Solitude and Connection

By Amina Wadud

…off last year after my accident.) You know what they say about saving the best for last?! So it is appropriate, I think, that in my reading I came across several discussions about the ummah, which gave me additional food for thought. The word ummah comes from the same root as the word for mother, umm, in Arabic. So, with such a root, you should get the picture already. It’s about intimate connections. But it is never used for family nor even for…

Katy Perry’s Evangelical Hangover

By David Mihalyfy

…s Baldwin, whose thought and influence are still very much alive. Although best remembered for his novels and incisive cultural criticism, Baldwin spent several years as a teenage preacher in the historic Black wing of evangelicalism. Eventually deconverted by everything from Dostoevsky to the hypocrisy of other ministers, he would end up balancing distance from any church with affirmation of his essential belief in love, punctuating it all with c…

Prophet Muhammad

By Amina Wadud

…by Allah. What response could we have but to love in return and to do our best to make them proud? The Qur’an says wa maa arsalnaahu illa rahmatan lil-aalamin, “We” have not sent him (Muhammad) except as a mercy to all the worlds. First there is the negation. To erase any possible reason beyond the one given, a rahmah, a mercy. Usually this is translated as “we only sent him as a mercy,” but I wanted to offer the strength given in its original Ar…

Khalifah: We Really Do Have Control Over Our Own Destiny

By Amina Wadud

…believe we live this life according to our own will and trust in the Lord. I just don’t get the idea that unless I get a specific, personal, one-on-one message, then I cannot do the best I can with what God has given me. But then, as all the great Muslim thinkers conclude at the end of their writings: Allah knows best….

“Islam Is Not a Religion”

By Julie Ingersoll

…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…

The Left Behind: Why Are White American Christians So Racist?

By Daniel Schultz

…st and white Catholics in the Northeast. You can bet that Jones—one of the best pollsters of American religion at work today—has the data to back his argument up. White Christians, as he notes, are much more likely than the average citizen to buy the “heritage not hate” shtick about Confederate monuments, and much less likely to agree that the repercussions of slavery and institutionalized racism make it difficult for Blacks to find economic succe…