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Faith for Fuck-Ups? A New Book Explores a Broader Vision for Christianity

By Jason J. Stellman

…me God way up in heaven, we begin on the ground, in the trenches, amid the dirt and grime of our everyday earthly lives? What if, rather than saying, “God is A, B, and C” and trusting the trickle-down sanctification of free-market theism to make us good people, we say, “I want to be X, Y, and Z,” and then seek out the spiritual principles that are most likely to produce the results we are hoping for? It’s a kind of thought experiment about faith f…

The Arab, the Feds and the Flood: Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun Rescues America

By Haroon Moghul

…anding man doing his civic duty (for which he was arrested, slammed to the dirt, and then dumped into prison with petty looters, rapists, and murderers). For all that, it has something to say about what happened to us. It sticks and succeeds because it upends everything. It comes down to the rightful revulsion we feel for a system which turns on a decent man and leaves him penned up in makeshift cages, under piercing white lights that could floodl…

Reports of the Death of ISIS Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…destroy ISIS, and that the Shi’a liberators treated the local Sunnis like “dirt.” “They think that we are all ISIS sympathizers,” they told me. Many were, especially at the beginning of ISIS control, when ISIS was seen as a Sunni vanguard that would provide dignity and jobs for the largely Sunni population of Mosul and other parts of western Iraq. Even now, the young men told me, there were many ISIS sympathizers embedded among the refugees, ready…

#Churchtoo: Apology of Evangelical Pastor Accused of Sexual Assault Shows Why Sorry Isn’t Enough

By Jessica Johnson

…ring of 1998 when she was seventeen is far more detailed. He turned onto a dirt road and continued to drive. There were trees all around. I could not see the main road anymore…I asked what was back here. He told me they were building a church. I thought, maybe that’s what this was about, maybe he has some secret to tell me, like perhaps he was moving to another church. We reached a dead end and he turned the truck around before putting it in park….

The ‘Pro-Family’ Movement Has Little to Say About Family Separation

By Sophie Bjork-James

…14-month-old baby returned to his mother after 85 days covered in lice and dirt. At this point even if all the children are returned to their families, something that is not at all certain, the experience will likely have longer-term effects, possibly even on the children’s genetic codes. Yet one group has remained largely silent: the “pro-family” movement comprised largely of conservative white evangelicals. Many evangelical leaders, such as Paul…

With Kurdish Genocide a Real Danger, How Ethical Was Mattis’ Resignation?

By Ivan Strenski

…pearance of our awareness of the fate of the Syrian Kurds in the “dust and dirt” of the Syrian deserts only confirm Hitler as a media-savvy genius? A soldier’s honor is a fine thing, but how much does it weigh in the scales of justice against genocide? How much greater the suffering of the Kurds if Mattis had provoked an aggravated national crisis on their behalf? At the very least, Trump wouldn’t enjoy the undisturbed opportunity of asking at som…

Sharbat Gula’s Experience Exemplifies the ‘White Savior’ Lens Through Which Most Americans View Afghanistan

By Sara Kamali

…chador, and in other photos displaying her nail-bitten fingers lined with dirt, simplified the narrative of Afghanistan. Rather than instigate questions such as whether or not Afghans themselves wanted war and what the ultimate cost would be to Afghans and Americans alike, Steve McCurry’s portrayal of Sharbat Gula made the narrative of a US-led invasion into Afghanistan palatable to many Americans. McCurry’s depiction of Sharbat Gula as a helples…

The Symbol is Dead, Let the Symbolized Die Too

By Hussein Rashid

…ared war and died as a soldier, but not a martyr. Had he been given a microphone at a trial, he might have become relevant again. As it is, he died as a soldier who refused to fight; a general with no army. He died as an empty shell, the way he began. I find that I agree with the Vatican: Osama bin Laden, as we all know, had the very grave responsibility of spreading division and hatred amongst the people, causing the death of countless of people,…

New Study: Jews More “Spiritual” Less Ancestral

By Benjamin Weiner

…hasn’t been seen in the Jewish world since the first pages of the book of Numbers. And the reasons are similar. After the harrowing experiences of genocide and immigration, we find ourselves straggling through a new wilderness; anxious to know whether or not our demographics portend survival. But for the metaphor to be complete, we would have to imagine Moses, Aaron, and the elders, sitting under God’s cloud in the tent of meeting, asking each ot…

Hannibal Returns: Is TV’s Favorite Serial Killer the Devil Himself?

By Nicholas Laccetti

…n the Scriptures. Retreatants are instructed to feel the Galilean air, the dirt under their feet, as they witness Jesus’ miracles, his suffering. Here, instead, Will immerses himself in crime scenes, with the imaginative faculties and empathy that would certainly serve him well as a Christian mystic. In fact, if Will Graham were diagnosed by a medieval theologian like St. Thomas Aquinas rather than a cannibalistic psychiatrist, he’d be considered…