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How Trump’s Assertion of “Power to Pardon” Tramples the American Sacred

…lues, values which Philip Gorski, in his recent and impassioned defense of American civil religion, American Covenant, expands beyond simply freedom to include equality, “national solidarity (‘We, the People, in order to form a more perfect union’), the common good (or ‘general welfare’) and active citizenship,” suggesting that “civic inclusion and recognition should perhaps be added to our national creed as well.” Tyranny isn’t merely the opposit…

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Gandhi, his Grandson, Israel, and the Jews

…zed American political atmosphere one wonders if there is any way—polite or impolite—to conduct a serious public conversation about the Middle East in general, and about Israel in particular The clash between Arun Gandhi and the American Jewish leadership, Israeli intellectuals, and American Christian supporters of Zionism may have been inevitable. Sadly, this was a noisy and ugly clash, not worthy of the tradition of exchange and dialogue that pr…

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ABC’s Hit Sitcom Black-ish Does God, Pushes Theological Respectability

…t an important demographic within this growth. Keep in mind, too, that the number of African Americans falling into this category has almost doubled over the past thirty-years. Belief in God doesn’t bind African Americans to one other, and it is unfortunate to assume—even with a laugh—that belief in God is some sort of litmus test. What holds African Americans together isn’t a particular response to the challenges and mysteries of life. No, what b…

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A Jewish Perspective on Reparations

…itic Because They’re Anti-White: “A genuinely candid confrontation between American Negroes and American Jews.” Isn’t now the time for communal awakening? Shouldn’t we look for leadership from the recent initiative of Jews pledging support for cooperatives in the South as part of a campaign to commemorate 50 years since the Mississippi Freedom Summer? And from the 30 American Rabbis who went to march in Ferguson right after the high holidays this…

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Peter Beinart’s Controversial The Crisis of Zionism: Right Diagnosis, Wrong Treatment

…. If Beinart’s book were an indictment at all it was not of Israel, but of American Jewry. And the anger it evoked tells us more about what the fervent American Jewish pro-Israel critics really care about. Some years ago I presented an academic paper at an American Academy of Religion conference comparing Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Jewish Reconstructionism, to Baruch Spinoza, the quintessential modern Jewish heretic. A senior scholar stood up…

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State of the Union Stuck in that Olde-Time Semi-Niebuhrianism

…. But he went further, making the newfound clamor for “civility” a mark of American exceptionalism: All American children share “the dreams of a little girl in Tucson”; all Americans believe that those dreams “deserve the chance to be fulfilled”; and that shared belief “sets us apart as a nation.” As commentators quickly dubbed the president’s optimistic, future-oriented SOTU rhetoric “Reaganesque,” I thought of Garry Wills’ clever term for The Gi…

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The Forgotten History of Black Calvinism and the Haunting of American Folk Music

…eaders will be able to see the emergence of the Bible Belt and the fate of American Calvinism in new and different ways. What alternative title would you give the book? I originally wanted to go with American Primitives full stop. No subtitle. I thought it was clean and it distilled the argument down to two words. Other folks found it cryptic and preposterous. I eventually agreed with them. Kinda. How do you feel about the cover? I love it. The de…

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Forget Right or Wrong

…researchers share the unsurprising finding that “young adults engage in a number of religious practices less often than do older Americans.” What they may mean to say is traditional religious practices: weekly attendance at religious services, weekly scripture reading, daily prayer, and weekly meditation. (My guess is as good as yours on the greater expected frequency of prayer in the survey.) The Pew survey design is problematic—and this is wher…

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The Irony of the American Studies Israel Boycott

…a course of action that isn’t hypocritical and arbitrary, U.S. scholars of American Studies pledge to “boycott” American academic institutions (e.g., give up their salaries) if those institutions tacitly or explicitly, through investment or research grants, for instance, supported U.S. violations of human rights—occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, drone strikes, NSA monitoring, Guantanamo Bay, Jim Crow incarceration patterns, immigration walls an…

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