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GMO or No: Problematic Intersections of Religion, Biotechnology, and Food

By Brittany Shoot

…fferent views than lay practitioners of a particular faith. Throughout the book, lay adherents and expert interpreters alike offer perspectives on how GM foods intersect with their religious and ethical dietary traditions. Each author conducted additional focus groups among their respective discipline or tradition. In Lyne Létourneau’s dietary overview, vegetarianism is examined as a multifaceted choice. Meat eating is historically conflicted; wh…

Undercover at Falwell’s Liberty University, Finding Common Ground

By Nathan Schneider

…efore he arrived. He read C.S. Lewis’ apologetic works and Susan Harding’s classic study of the Lynchburg scene, The Book of Jerry Falwell. A Christian friend tutored him in some of the jargon. He decided to go undercover; to his new friends at Liberty, Roose said he had recently accepted Jesus as his personal savior. Nobody there guessed that he was not really among the elect. His family of liberal, secular Quakers serve as the Jiminy Cricket on…

Manhattan Declaration Is The New Old Culture War

By Sarah Posner

…lions of Americans who lack it. That would mean that gay marriage laws get passed not only unchallenged by the so-called centrists but supported by them, so that LGBTQ people (God’s children?) are no longer relegated to second-class citizenship. Anything less than that from the prophets of the end of the culture wars means that they are fighting them, or at the very least throwing fuel on the fire, along with the culture warriors they claim to rej…

What the Danish Cartoon Controversy Tells Us About Religion, the Secular, and the Limits of the Law

By Winnifred Fallers Sullivan

…rization of the biblical injunction that the truth will make you free, the class prejudices built in to blasphemy prosecutions in England, and the heroic nature of secular criticism. Most surprising, perhaps, for many, will be his explanation of the legal status of belief in Islam. Asad says that individual belief is understood in Muslim law to be fundamentally inscrutable and that its coercion is always thought to be inappropriate. What is of con…

Monks With Guns: Discovering Buddhist Violence

By Michael Jerryson

…ectrum of emotions, which includes the penchant for violence. Although the book only arrived at bookstores last month, it apparently touched some nerves in the academic community before its release. Some have objected to the cover [image right], which they feel is not an appropriate subject for Buddhism. Ironically, that is the very reason this collection of essays is so important: to address the apparent and widespread inability to acknowledge th…

Creationist-Leaning Texas Sets Textbook Agenda

By Lauri Lebo

…kills.” It also requires “supplemental materials” to be used alongside textbooks in public school science class. Of course, the state is an old hand at such tactics. In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s Balanced Treatment Act, which required creationism to be taught alongside evolution. I’m headed to Louisiana tomorrow. While I will be primarily searching for incredible food, wonderful music and one of those ubiquitous drive-th…

Judging Pat Robertson’s Influence

By Sarah Posner

…dging a public figure’s influence is a tricky business. Sure, best-selling books, sell-out crowds and the like tell you something. You could look at the 700 Club’s Nielsen ratings, or do a public opinion survey on someone’s favorability ratings, or ask other other evangelicals to name their most “influential” brethren. Or you could perform the Washington journalist’s task of eliciting gossip (“asshole” is how one conservative operative once descri…

Louisiana Students Must Choose: Religion or Science

By Lauri Lebo

…kills.” It also requires “supplemental materials” to be used alongside textbooks in public school science class. Forrest and the Louisiana Citizens for Science lobbied fiercely against the creationist language, but, in the end, only three members of the House voted against it because they feared crossing Jindal, who is closely allied the Louisiana Family Forum, the chief lobbyists of the bill. Until recently, the fight had been over how the wordin…

The Myth of ‘Voodoo’: A Caribbean American Response to Representations of Haiti

By Dianne M. Stewart

At a time when increasing numbers of informed audiences in both scholarly and popular circles have begun to recognize African religious cultures and the rich contributions they have made to African diaspora civilizations, Pat Robertson has made another dubious contribution to America’s fascination with the ‘problem of Haiti.’ As Robertson narrates it, in his latest fiction-disguised-as-revelation, “something happened a long time ago in Haiti,” an…

Purpose Driven Atheism: Secular Maharishis Seeking True Believers

By Frank Schaeffer

…es, who first laid out a critique of the New Atheists in a review of their books in the Nation published in June 2007. “Where does the work of the New Atheists leave us?” he asked. “Living without God means turning toward something.” Then in his book Living Without God, Aronson fleshed out his critique. He writes, “Religion is not really the issue, but rather the incompleteness or tentativeness, the thinness or emptiness, of today’s atheism, agnos…