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Despite Vastly Different Values, Evangelical ‘Hamilton’ Connects Secular Left and Christian Right

By Jake Johnson

…hurch production brings an intriguing situation to the surface. It’s not nothing that, in an age of bitter critique and entrenchment, we find an example where warring parties actually admit to finding meaning in the same fundamental story. Musicals like Hamilton thin out our relationship with the world as it is in order to make us rethink the world as it might become. Churches like The Door McAllen seem to be doing the same. Ideas with thin skin m…

“Of Kings and Prophets” Producers—a Christian, a Muslim and a Jew—Refuse to Sanitize the Bible

By Reza Aslan, Bill Collage and Adam Cooper

…now this better than anyone. Today, often with far less at stake, people struggle to stay true to their faith when confronted by the expediency of simply getting through the day. In David’s world, each of these character’s choices had outsized consequences—so much so that we still study them 3,000 years later. For each of us, we are devoted to our respective faiths, and passionate about our artistry. That’s why we are convinced that if the enterta…

Free Arabs: Satire, Disobedience, and Disclaimers

By Nabil Echchaibi

…ideology, ‘Islamism,’ is surprisingly descending.” It’s not that satire is new to the Arab world or that Islamist-bashing is a recent phenomenon. But, the proliferation of this kind of defiance in the wake of the Arab uprisings must be read in a dramatically different light. If there is such a thing as a defining paradigm, or at least an enduring spirit, of the Arab Spring, it has to be the fact that it never was a total revolution or a drastic hi…

Anti-Gay Campaign In Indonesia Leads to Arrests; Mexico’s Religious Right Wars Against Secular State & LGBT Equality; Muslim Preacher Sparks Controversy in UK Re Death Penalty For Gays; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…o freeze your eggs, he said. That is the policy of the Puah Institute, a Jerusalem center that advises infertile couples based on Jewish law, or halachah. On the other hand, Judaism is very understanding of a woman’s need to have babies, Cherlow said. In the Torah, the Jewish matriarch Rachel tells her husband, Jacob, to give her a baby or she will die. Rabbis draw on the Bible’s emphasis on fertility to craft fairly liberal positions on assisted…

Well, the Harris-Trump Debate Happened — Now Enjoy Your Freedom and Choose Wisely

By Mary Rambaran-Olm

…4-sentence plan that Harris is copying, and it’s based on the classic book Run, Spot, Run. “Take a look at her plan. She doesn’t have a plan.” Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, are basically the new Riggs and Murtaugh of DC because they’re gun owners. Harris’ “girl, what?” face was unstoppable. Trump is actually pleased that Harris is Black and doesn’t really care either way. Trump had more zingers than people will give him credit for, partic…

Failure to Grasp the Distinct Character and History of Eastern Christianity is Compromising Our Understanding of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

By Katherine Kelaidis

…stern Christian identity. For example, the 1204 Sack of Constantinople by Crusaders, so pivotal in Orthodox Christian self-understanding, is virtually unknown in the West. Yet it underlies Patriarch Kirill’s defense of Russian aggression in Ukraine, even when it sounds to Western ears like standard conservative Christian fare. It also stands at the center of more progressive Orthodox Christian conversations, for example around colonialism as a par…

Robert Bellah’s Powerful Legacy: A Mixed Blessing for Religious Studies?

By Ivan Strenski

…it strange that Bellah believed his recommendations amounted to anything truly new, much less something as perplexing as a “new religious consciousness.” Stranger still is why Bellah would use such tendentious language at all; especially when he must have known how many red flags it would have set off among his political enemies on campus. Thus, when we take such talk of a department of religious studies being the breeding grounds for a “new reli…

New for Democrats: Non-Personhood for the Non-Rich

By Peter Laarman

…re are millions of families like the Hartzells out there—the Joads of this ruthless new economy—but there is no evidence at all that anyone in the political class is prepared to give them a seat at the budget negotiation table. In order to torture people, in order to cause them certain pain, you must first obliterate their humanity: you must excise from your consciousness the idea that you have anything in common with them, that you are flesh of t…

Pence Meets With One of Putin’s Top Clerics: Strange Bedfellows at BGEA’s World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians

By Chrissy Stroop

…tic forces outside Russia. While Moscow made similar efforts during Soviet times, Russian President Vladimir Putin has rebranded post-Soviet Russia into the global standard bearer for “traditional values conservatism,” and in this capacity attracts primarily right-wing fellow travelers. On the one hand, this policy would seem to make President and CEO of BGEA Franklin Graham a natural partner for Putin and the ROC, and, indeed, Graham has warmed c…

Religious Differences Are Real (and Tolerance Can Be an Empty Virtue)

By Stephen Prothero

…iers and those diplomats—curious readers who know you can’t understand the world without understanding the powerful role the world’s religions play in it. Are you hoping to just inform readers? Give them pleasure? Piss them off? All of the above. I have certainly done my share of pissing people off, and I do think some of the writing in the book will bring readers pleasure, but the main goal is to inform. The world’s religions are in my view not s…