Religion Dispatches
…why, but the Moroccan audience—and Bab Makina has a large number of upper-class Moroccans in attendance—really enjoy gospel. It’s an appreciation that appeared to cut across generations. Based on comments I heard, people are aware that many of the songs praise Jesus as the son of God, an idea that is anathema to Muslims. Unfortunately, I could not understand the appeal, outside of the aesthetic, but it was wonderful to see so many people apprecia…
Read More
…cracy.) But it points to more; Saiving quotes Lionel Trilling as well: The American educated middle class is firm in its admiration of non-conformity and dissent. The right to be non-conformist, the right to dissent, is part of our conception of community. Everybody says so… Admiring non-conformity and loving community, we have decided that we are all non-conformists together. In the face of memory and nostalgia, what the phrase “I am a student of…
Read More…said. People seeking jobs have come from all over the Gulf region. Middle-class plant workers who lost their jobs in the recession and convicted felons recently released from prison. Mothers and sons and uncles and nephews. The work is hard. There is no shade and when the heat gets too unbearable, they can’t run into the water to cool off. They are black, white and Hispanic. I guess Kumrits and Jones fill the demographic of designated hippies. Th…
Read More
…s, and Jebusites. So, toevah is serious, but it is serious as a particular class of cultic offense: a transgression of national boundary. It is certainly not “abomination.” Toevah is used four times in Leviticus 18—once to refer to male homosexual acts, and then three times as an umbrella term. As in Deuteronomy, the signal feature of toevot is that the other nations of the Land of Israel do them: “You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgm…
Read More…n; I am this nationality; I am this religion; I am in this social economic class; I am any category of a number of things: including food consumption. Because I am this or that, then I am better than you. Sure oppression, or zulm, as it’s referred to in the Qur’an, also requires power: the power to exploit the differences as such, but even that is interesting in the way it is discussed in the Qur’an. For one thing, in the Qur’anic stories of Satan…
Read More
…, is that God really is irrelevant in the religious equation for a growing number of people. An atheist soccer fan can be religious, just as an evangelical Protestant soccer fan can be religious in more ways than one. Religion is damn elusive, it isn’t for the faint of heart, and it is definitely not all it’s cracked up to be. All the yammering about “spiritual not religious” begs the question of whether the sacred is really real (as one of my tea…
Read More
…or example, the Baha’i and the Copts of Egypt, who are relegated to second-class status; the Ahmadiyya Community, a large Muslim minority victimized by Pakistan’s blasphemy laws; or revisionist legal scholars like Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, author of Islam and the Secular State. Their advocacy for equal treatment of the heterodox, if it succeeds, will improve the lot of unbelievers in the Muslim-majority countries, yet its animating, organizing pri…
Read More…y, the Marxist-influenced school of thought developed by Central and South American theologians, and waged an aggressive media campaign in support of the Reagan administration’s policies in Nicaragua, El Salvador and elsewhere, alleging links between liberal church leaders and Marxist guerillas. After the Cold War, Naughton continues: The IRD turned its attention from the mainline churches’ activities in Central America to the churches’ internal a…
Read More…“Hypothetically speaking, how would you weigh the competing interests in a class-action lawsuit seeking an injunction against all future offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico?”* To which the answer would be, “I don’t want to comment on any potential litigation that may come before me,” because our political process is stupid and nominees have to tap dance around what they actually believe lest somebody place an anonymous hold on them for pla…
Read More
…d members are rewriting it to fit their ideal of the future, and using the classroom to further that ideology. For instance, McLeroy said the board has added many Hispanic names to the curriculum, but it also downplays the struggles that countless Americans have made against oppression. McLeroy said his goals have always been: Students should learn about “divine providence” and “In God We Trust”; children should understand the Constitution; they m…
Read More