Religion Dispatches
…re essentially Christian Zionists. Their “homeland” mentality was quite un-American. True, many American groups, not just hyperreligious ones, have looked upon the United States as a providential nation; a place prepared for them by God. But a providential nation is different than a providential homeland. The word “homeland” has become so charged—and now so banal—since 9/11 that we have forgotten that the United States is, in terms of political sc…
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…past with Gaza, dividing over whether to back Operation Cast Lead in 2008. Reservations about Israel’s use of force in Gaza have continued. In 2009, Yoffie called American Jewish critics of Cast Lead “morally deficient, profoundly out of touch with Jewish sentiment and also appallingly naïve.” Yoffie’s words supporting what the Israeli military has named Operation Pillar of Cloud horrify me. The current president of the URJ, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, tr…
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…gelicals were very clear that they didn’t want anything to do with African Americans for most of the twentieth century. They didn’t see African Americans as able to contribute to their movement. The racial assumptions were built into who evangelicals and fundamentalists were as people, just like the vast majority of white Americans right alongside them. They were no different. But what apocalypticism did was give white evangelicals a framework and…
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…rprise, Amway leaders have made billions by selling a phony version of the American Dream, while bilking thousands of ordinary American dreamers out of their hard-earned life savings. The wealth of the founders has supported the nearly 30+ year conservative makeover of American society through millions of dollars in donations to the creation and development of right-wing institutions and causes. ++++++++++ Rethinking Redemption: The Case of Charle…
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…g, Wuthnow writes, is “the phenomenon of drawing generalizations about the American public, meaning all of the American population, based on evidence that mostly reflects the sampled responses of the white majority.” Christian norming happens, too: a poll that supposedly reflects the nation’s views on God is, often, mostly talking about Christian views. In doing so, it’s essentially conflating “Christian” with “American,” a strategy typically asso…
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…to the popular audience. A recent Harris poll reported that 42 percent of Americans believe in ghosts. Whether one believes in ghosts or not, Americans are fascinated by them. A century and a half before the popularity of ghost-hunter shows on the SyFy Network and NBC’s award-winning show “Medium,” belief in spirit communication was serious and widespread in the United States. New Orleans in particular is known for ghosts and spirits, and this bo…
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…aism, on a sociological note. Given the rate of intermarriage among Jewish Americans and the ways in which American culture no longer is content with prescripted roles for varying ethnic groups, Magid infers that American Jews now live in a postethnic culture. The ways in which Jews perform their particularism vary widely. In one way or another, all Jewish Americans today are Jews by choice, defining their identity as opposed to accepting others’…
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…braves, warriors, and Geronimo are only part of the rich history of Native Americans. Until that history and its lessons are woven into the fabric of the American consciousness, we will continue to squander precious resources around the world failing to hear the same message over and over again. Steven Newcomb, a Shawnee Indian, said it best in a column in Indian Country Today: What the hell were they thinking… the code name was based on an extens…
Read More…versus-them package: that Obama doesn’t understand the divine roots of the American founding, probably because he’s not really a Christian and not really an American, and only by electing the likes of Michele Bachmann or Jim DeMint can we ensure that the Christian nation ship can be righted again. By framing the confrontation of this narrative as an “uphill battle,” Democrats make the enormous and unnecessary mistake of placing themselves in the p…
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…yet it remains difficult to have it admitted to public consciousness that American conservatism is organized anti-Black politics. American conservatism is, however, well-dressed white nationalism. Racists have put conservatism on like a hat, then disappeared in front of the eyes of those for whom object permanence would preferably remain a mystery. Liberal citizens require a veil, no matter how thin, to believe or claim to believe that, in what t…
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