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Future of Liberal Religion: A Counterculture Blooms?

By Jill K. Gill

…low from afar the NCC’s current “re-envisioning” effort, marked by the July 1 launch of its “Transitional General Secretary’s” 18-month term, I see evidence of a transformation afoot within ecumenism that questions the premise of the either/or accommodational choice Hollinger mentions. We may be misreading what is happening around those widening ecumenical tables. Second, Fosdick’s 1922 sermon might well provide inspiration to the pluralist-advanc…

“Who Was Muhammad, Was He Violent?”: Teaching Islam Ten Years
after 9/11

By Abbas Barzegar

…urderous acts of terror that mark the occasion of this anniversary and the spirited resistance of those choking under the heels of our empire. Our generation must be poised for a stout pragmatism that can manage gay marriage and Muslim face-veils in the same breath. As an educator I am 100% certain that within six months 80% of my students will forget 90% of what they learn this semester. As a citizen I am sure that our society’s questions about I…

Perry’s God-Talk at Liberty University

By Sarah Posner

…rsity, and instead casting his life and presidential aspirations in deeply spiritual terms. Perry said he spent many nights in his 20s pondering his purpose, “wondering what to do with this one life among the billions that were on the planet,” but that God’s answers were revealed to him in due time. No surprise on either count. Liberty University, after all, was founded as a Christian alternative to secular “elite” universities, and speaking at th…

Queer Repentance: On Not Surrendering to a Text, to Guilt, or to Habit

By Jay Michaelson

…ll religious people—but it’s one LGBT religious people cannot avoid. Queer spiritual consciousness is inherently distrustful because it has seen how rules, codes, and even the operation of conscience itself can be tools of oppression and self-repression. Of course, straight people ought to come to this realization also. But religious queer people have to. Yet once we have had our moments, done the work, and cultivated the mistrust, what is next? I…

The New Disciples: Report from South Carolina

By Sarah Posner

…ervative evangelicalism was on view: that of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting fame, who have endorsed Santorum. That these icons of the contraception-eschewing wing of evangelicalism marched behind the Knights of Columbus, carrying the Knights’ “Defend Life” posters, exemplifies the intensifying unity between conservative evangelicals and conservative Catholics, particularly on reproductive access issues. If there was any doubt…

Civil Rights’ Roughneck Preacher, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth (1922-2011)

By Anthea Butler

…, to give up his body regularly to violence. He survived a house bombing in 1956; a beating with bike chains by the KKK in 1957 when he tried to enroll his children in a white school; and being beaten into unconsciousness—two times. He was arrested 30 to 40 times by his own account, but who can count when you’ve been hosed down, beaten, and wished dead by Bull Connor. Still, Shuttlesworth kept on keeping on. Many do not realize that Shuttlesworth’…

Robert Jeffress Has a Lot of Nerve

By Sarah Posner

…man.” One of the heretic hunters’ complaints about Word of Faith and other spirit-led charismatic movements like the New Apostolic Reformation is how they rely on extra-biblical revelations—the same complaint made about Mormonism. Judging from the reaction of the American Family Association—which itself has been criticized by co-religionists for its own deviations from WWJD—these Perry supporters are willing to put up with a bit of heresy in their…

Dumping Satan: It’s Time to Let Go

By Emily Manuel

…is is a God who sends evil spirits to torment, as in the case of Saul (1 S. 18:10) or Jeroboam (1 K. 14:10). We take those texts very seriously in trying to ascertain the very character of God. So in some ways you’re re-evaluating God as well as Satan. Well at the end of the book, we conclude that if Satan is indeed nothing but a servant of Satan, then it is God who is ultimately responsible for all that God does—especially if you look at the book…

Liberals Agree, Israel is Greatest Thing Since Sliced Challah

By Shalom Goldman

…is powerless in the face of the relentless settler minority.” Thus, in the spirit of the list proffered at the review’s beginning, we can retain a view of an Israel that is “a model of Western values.” *My assumption that Gorenberg agreed with Goldberg was mistaken. Indeed, in his book, he writes: “Before describing how that [settlement started], I should dispose of several myths. The standard Israeli telling is that settlement in the occupied ter…

Occupy in Exile: Sacred Space is Everywhere

By Donna Schaper

…y wants to know where it is—and it is everywhere. On Monday night, November 14, 2011, the mayor of New York City ordered the police to evict the 500 or so overnight occupiers in Zuccotti Park. As part of the eviction, tents and computers, books and papers, food and toilet paper were destroyed, actually ground fine in dumpsters. Many falsely thought the movement wouldn’t survive its physical eviction and material destruction. They were and are wron…