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After Mumbai: Winning the Global War on Terror

…m. It was the perfect target. A small Jewish cultural center staffed by an American-Israeli Rabbi and his wife, both of whom were killed, was also singled out. This indicates a transnational orientation. Mumbai does have a small Jewish community, but the center served a Jewish tourist community. It was a symbolic target because in South Asia and elsewhere in the Muslim world, “Jews” and the religion of Judaism are routinely implicated in complex,…

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Yes, It’s Worse To Be Gay in Russia

…e that describes a recent Levada Center poll.  “Can you imagine only 7% of Americans opposing a law forbidding ‘gay propaganda?’” Sharlet asks. And of course he’s right that the American “liberals” downplaying the severity of the anti-LGBT climate in Russia are wrong. While I do not doubt that in some parts of the US, same-sex couples are still justifiably afraid to hold hands in public, a country in which a slim but growing majority of the popula…

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Recovering From Rejection: The Second Coming of Ted Haggard

…nks. You have to determine that on your own.” Haggard’s weekly Oval Office phone calls and grip and grin NAE photo ops with former President George W. Bush are now mere vestiges of an old life, prior to what he calls the “crisis.” At New Life, which Jeff Sharlet described as “not just a battalion of spiritual warriors but a factory for ideas to arm them,” worship services were extravagant multimedia, fog machine-choked productions, in which Haggar…

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Swiss Priest Sacked for Blessing Lesbian Couple; Mormon Equality Advocate Excommunicated; Pope-Backed Anti-Gay Referendum Fails; Global LGBT Recap

…th hate from politicians and religious leaders seeking political power and cheap popularity.” She and more than 130 volunteers then distributed the magazine across the country and into some unlikely hands, including to Uganda’s Parliament, president, and other politicians, as well as churches and media outlets. Nabagesera says Bombastic has been a “big hit,” allowing her to attract correspondents in every country across the African continent. She…

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“Giving Godhead”: A Bloody Vision of Religion’s Deepest Influence

…sovereign of the universe something of which Krieger, again, in that deep American tradition best personified by Herman Melville, remains suspicious of—which is to say armed against. War in the name of faith is a recurring theme, as with cell-phone videos of beheadings. Krieger reads such rage within a dichotomy of “fundamentalist repression” and its opposite, freedom. Alhough she prefers the phrase “over-pervy libertinism” as, for her, the dicho…

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The Collapse of the American Jewish Center

…nment officials. “That’s a driving force to the center and the left” among American Jews, he said. The polarization of American Jews, said Dov Waxman, Professor of Political Science, International Affairs, and Israel Studies at Northeastern University, has increased with each large-scale eruption of fighting between Israel and Palestinians. Since the Second Intifada, which started in 2000, he said, with each escalation—Operation Cast Lead in 2009,…

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The Sacred and the Dead: Truckin’ as a New American Pilgrimage

…rateful Dead 50 years ago, especially in terms of the dramatic rise of the number of Americans who are no longer affiliated with traditional religious institutions or denominations. In the absence of traditional religious affiliation, people are increasingly turning to popular culture to explore and interrogate the ultimate questions of meaning and purpose in their lives. That is why in the United States, there is now a Church of Elvis Presley and…

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Before Black Twitter: How the Early Black Press Shaped American Discourse Around Race and Religion

…Newspaper and the Chosen Nation is that, in the decades leading up to the American Civil War, black Americans used their newspapers to not only proclaim their status as God’s chosen nation on Earth, but to then apply that faith in black chosenness to a range of on-the-ground struggles for black liberation. So I hope that readers of the book not only come away with a better understanding of the contours of black chosenness, but also with a sense o…

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In the Aftermath of the “Himalayan Tsunami”

…(first as Uttaranchal) in 2000, the region has seen a massive rise in the number of visitors to the region, especially by the growing Indian middle class. Roads widened and hotels and visitor services grew exponentially. Building a new hotel or a restaurant by the side of the road felt like a smart investment—even when the road was near a river. Kedarnath saw the building of new cell phone towers, a railway reservation office, helicopter landing…

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The Sacred and the Dead: Operator, Can You Help Me?

…connection, once burning with possibility and joy, began to cool, as cell phone calls dwindled and numbers eventually changed or were disconnected. As our shared realities drifted apart in their likeness, like Pigpen, I also turned to technologies that promised connection to try to tamp down the yearning and temper that sense of loss. Where Pigpen called up the trusty telephone operator, I did my pining alone, with only the camaraderie of a searc…

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