Religion Dispatches
…m God’s ambassador, sent to earth with his full authority,’ he announced.” New York Times editorial, June 27, 2004 To some, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon may be a relic of a bygone era; to others, he’s a brother from another planet. But despite the fact that news about Moon’s various religious/media/business endeavors rarely appears on the radar screens of the nation’s media (both mainstream and alternative), Moon continues to move ahead on a number…
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…ama is handling the US relationship with Israel. Whatever that means.) The New York Jewish Week, which is quite conservative on such matters, drilled down further into these figures in an editorial last month: Those statistics might come as a shock to those who list Israel as the most important issue. The political divide in the Jewish community between Orthodox Jews and the rest of American Jewry is reflected in the fact that Orthodox Jews suppor…
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…esting the political water—knowing that Donald Trump is too preoccupied in New York with the Stormy Daniels hush money trial to notice that they just kicked him in his anti-Ukraine policy bottom. Whatever the case, however, the once-backbench Johnson, now holding the Speaker’s gavel, has seemingly transformed himself from a pro-Insurrection, MAGA, Moscow Marjorie kind of guy to a polished, genteel, insider evangelical with ties to the elite Family…
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…e strengthened by the defeat of the military option proposed by Hamas. The New York Times Ad: On Wed. Jan.14, Rabbi Michael Lerner’s Tikkun magazine and the Network of Spiritual Progressives ran a full page ad in the New York Times. The ad, signed by Dr. Cornel West, Sister Joan Chittister, and 2800 others, urges President-Elect Obama to: 1.) Call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza when he is sworn in as president, and 2.) Convene an Internationa…
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…ch as Microsoft and Apple that support LGBT rights and same-sex marriage. Amini Amir Abdullah, who heads Perkasa’s Islamic affairs bureau, said Muslims should stay away from Starbucks because its pro-gay rights policy is against Islam and Malaysia’s constitution. In response, “pro-moderation advocate” Tawfik Ismail “wants Perkasa president Ibrahim Ali to reveal what he intends to do if he finds out his prayer mat was woven by a gay weaver,” report…
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…following the debate about Glaude’s essay on National Public Radio, in The New York Times, and even at The Root, the Henry Louis Gates-founded blog geared toward the Black upper-middle class. Where were the Black theologians? They do exist: in our age of institutionalized multiculturalism, every divinity school and seminary knows that they need one. Academic Black theology began with Black Christian intellectuals inserting themselves into the publ…
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…ntretemps around the opening of the new REBAR in the old G Lounge space in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood is (again) quite typical. Evidently aware that G had finally, after many years, become a rare welcoming downtown space for people of color, the new management made a point of making REBAR distinctly unwelcoming to African American patrons. With Pride month upon us, I want to call out what should be recognized as the Gay Shame in the persisten…
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…in the past two decades than Krakauer’s riveting tale. It appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list for weeks in 2003 and remains a top seller nineteen years later. Other than the Book of Mormon itself, Under the Banner of Heaven has likely shaped more Americans’ minds about the LDS faith than any other book. Rumors concerning a film adaptation appeared almost immediately, but the story will finally make its dramatic appearance as a true-cr…
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…DL “Jewish Panthers.” He respected Sonny Carson (a local Black militant in New York) and Stokely Carmichael along with Malcolm X. He also thought they were antisemites and he fought Black antisemitism, which was the reason for him starting the Jewish Defense League during the 1968 New York City school strike (due to the antisemitism directed at union president Albert Shanker). So Black antisemitism does play a role. He had this kind of twisted rel…
Read More…lt position is to concede to the imagined demands of radicals. Neither the New York Times nor experts like Marc Lynch see this as an overseas issue. If he really is an expert on building bridges, he should have worked harder on a proactive strategy. This last point is particularly relevant as he describes himself as the visionary behind the project, leaving the logistics to SoHo Properties. While I suspect many people had hoped that Abdul-Rauf’s r…
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