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This is not a Religion Column: Sarah Palin, American

By Jeff Sharlet

…ommonly attendant to urban living. Even his name is a sly joke for working class sophisticates, common men who’d know enough about culture to be able to whistle “Fanfare for the Common Man,” another populist delusion penned in 1942. That doesn’t sound like Sarah Palin. Too many Obama supporters have been too quick to prove Palin right when she spoke of the snobs who look down on people like her. Palin is from a small town, and her interests are th…

Freeman Dyson, American Heretic

By Michael J. Altman

If Scientists are the West’s last priestly class then Freeman Dyson might be our greatest heretic. Nicholas Dawidoff’s profile of the brilliant physicist in the New York Times Magazine illuminates a man who has always sought to subvert scientific consensus—most recently in denying the dangers of climate change and CO2 emissions. The story’s title, “The Civil Heretic,” signals the ghost of religion hanging in the background. It is the “secular rel…

RDBook: Christian Culture Clash

By Krista Kapralos

…I think is that liberals will either learn from evangelicals or they’ll continue knocking on death’s door. —- Read More of RD’s Book Coverage on our Book Page….

Rev. Ella Pearson Mitchell (1917-2008)

By Jonathan L. Walton

…be sure, this sort of nobility transcends both aristocratic arrogance and class conceit. Rather it is derived from humble commitment to serving others, reminding us all of our better human potential. And such a magisterial manner—to remix womanist theologian Katie Cannon—is demonstrated by an invisible yet tangible dignity, quiet yet powerful grace, and an unshouted though heart-thumping courage. This defines the towering life and lasting legacy…

Paul Weyrich, “Godfather” of Modern Conservative Movement, Dead at 66

By Bill Berkowitz

…ation [about] how he might accomplish his dream [bringing together working-class Catholics and evangelical Protestants] when he attended a political strategy session run by liberal operatives.” Although Weyrich hadn’t been invited to the confab—and to my knowledge he never revealed how he got there—Martin’s book quoted him as saying that “there before my eyes was revealed the modus operandi of the left:” They had all these different groups, includ…

Found in Translation: How a Thirteenth-Century Islamic Poet Conquered America

By Ryann Croken

…the “wiped off the map” scandal: an entire country was reduced to a second-class leader who was reduced to a caricature who became a manifest casus belli. This is the same process of mistranslating a Middle Eastern country, recall, that led us into Iraq, and this reductive demonology is both representative and routine. Islamophobia has now become a socially acceptable subcategory of anti-Semitism. Fundamentalist and terrorist have become not fring…

Don’t Blame Secularism: Reading Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion

By Jeffrey Feldman

…image of those colorful world maps that sat on the wall at the head of the classroom. Anybody over the age of 40 remembers this classroom setup. While most countries were divided up into states and territories, a huge chunk of real estate was occupied by a big swath of pink, enigmatically labeled ‘U.S.S.R.’ By the time I got to my grade school homeroom, institutionalized ignorance of the Soviet Union was not just a problem, it was a tradition. Far…

AIG: On Charisma and Routinization of Greed

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ity, was fascinated by the religious role of the prophet. In what is now a classic text in the field, he dedicated an entire chapter to the question of what “prophetic” figures, from a wide variety of different religious traditions, from all around the world, actually had in common. The two features most commonly imagined by his predominately western audiences were the prophet as critic of institutional misbehavior and the prophet as predictor of…

Double Helix: Science & Religion as Cultural Kindling; A Response to The New Republic

By Arri Eisen

…to acknowledge the pink elephant, not ignore her. The point is when in the classroom and in other public forums, science teachers, scientists, politicians, clergymen, and others discuss creationism or evolution, stem cells or abortion, in vitro fertilization or genetic testing, there is a pink elephant in the room. In my university science classroom, for example, the elephant is religion. Science can be a good and powerful force; religion can be a…

Mauled by an Angel: Why Do Americans Need “God’s Secret Agents”?

By W. Scott Poole

…later in the Left Behind series) who literally fulfills the imagery of the Book of Revelation on his Second Coming, riding a white horse (much like the terrible horseman that represents death) and slaughtering his enemies till blood runs in rivers. What could possibility mitigate this almost Lovecraftian portrayal of divine forces? In an American evangelical Protestantism that had no room for the saints of Catholic spirituality, angels offered a p…