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Secure Borders? Not a Chance, Senator

By Ira Chernus

…hemselves invulnerable, the more they convinced themselves that they were truly insecure. By the late ’60s the whole system was breaking down, and a new form of spirituality emerged. Though Wuthnow calls it “seeking,” it has all the hallmarks of what Tweed calls “crossing.” Boundaries, borders, and sheltering walls no longer seemed to matter so much. Rather than stay safely at home, people wanted to take “journeys,” “explore new vistas,” go where…

On NSA Spying, What’s With the Silence of the Lambs?

By Peter Laarman

…ee’s report on CIA torture public. As we were meeting on Thursday morning, news was breaking back East about Feinstein’s pitiful and shameful defense of FISA Court-authorized spying. If you suppose that our mutterings of protest about that seemed feeble and feckless under the circumstances, you would be correct. What we should have said, loud and clear, is that state secrecy and state torture are intimately connected, as any reality-tour of terro…

If Muslims Stop Drinking Will They Become Violent?

By Haroon Moghul

…nder, it’s merely the latest and appears in one of the most well-respected newspapers. The truth is, these same assumptions can be found in numerous papers, periodicals, and of course on TV. Nonetheless, for an article to note an increase in the observance of Islam and to link that to the danger of extremism is to fly in the face of the only real, rigorous evidence we have, without presenting any reasons why we should fear extremism, except common…

Foreclosure, Fraud and Pharaoh

By Daniel Schultz

…laid on them; then they will labor at it and pay no attention to deceptive words.’ It doesn’t take much imagination to connect the dots here. True, Pharaoh didn’t use fraudulent documents to maintain his economic edge. But when the average people cry out for relief, they’re called lazy (or irresponsible) by those who control the economy. That much is the same. And instead of a respite, the avenues of relief are closed off and the people are told t…

White Conservative Christian America Not Going Down Without a Fight

By Paul Harvey

…ard was a bigger tent, a move away from divisive social issues (which, in Trump’s words, could be called “losers”), and some attempt to embrace or entice greater ethnic diversity, particularly among Latino voters. Evidently the autopsy report did not reach this year’s platform committee. Or if it reached them, it’s clear that drafters of the platform—featuring co-chair Mary Fallin (current hard-right governor of Oklahoma recently quoted as believi…

This is Not a Religion Column: The Audacity of Compromise…

By Jeff Sharlet

…ed about every aspect of life.” It was also a time of empire. A man of his word, Warren has built one of his own, recently branding Rwanda the first officially “Purpose-Driven nation,” after his international bestseller, The Purpose-Driven Life. The US government has fallen in line, pledging federal “faith-based” funding to augment Warren’s freelance foreign policy, which emphasizes Rwanda’s transformation (or, perhaps, conversion?) through small-…

Misusing Cesar Chavez in Immigration Debate

By Luis Leon

…havez terminated the fast—his longest ever at thirty-six days, a duration trumping even those undergone by Gandhi, his Indian guru. Like Gandhi, Chavez staged three public fasts, including the “Love Fast,” begun on February 14, 1968, which ended twenty-five days later with an ecumenical mass in which he broke bread with Robert Kennedy. Each of Chavez’s three public rituals was dubbed a “spiritual fast,” during which he took communion from priests…

Indonesian Volcano Update: Yes, it’s a Religion Story…

By Mark Woodward

…er. The reason is that many students at Islamic Universities are from poor rural families. The demand spike was substantial because a single relief shipment often included 500 or more packaged meals. These informal relief efforts were important because they reached people that government and international relief organizations could not find. Thousands of people took refuge in mosques, religious schools and in other public spaces that were not offi…

US Catholic Bishops Elect a Culture Warrior

By Marian Ronan

…ay’s loyalty to the Church. She was a faithful Catholic. He didn’t use the word obedient, exactly, but clearly that’s what he was getting at. Now there can be no doubt that Dorothy Day was a faithful Catholic; she did not spend a lot of time attacking the bishops. But she was also nobody’s fool. As the distinguished historian of American Catholicism James Terence Fisher has stressed, Day was shrewd enough to become one of the most influential Amer…

Robertson’s Organizations Persist in Calls for Probe of Congressional Muslim Staffers

By Sarah Posner

…’s happening internally in Islam, but we cannot be afraid of exposing the truth of what is happening here in our US Capitol. Our hope is that the truth comes out, that people see the associations here, and that this group isn’t able to meet anymore.” As I noted on Friday, the vice-president of the CMSA (which, as Khan pointed out, doesn’t organize the prayer meetings but there is overlap between its members and people attending the prayer meetings…