Religion Dispatches
…thoritarianism and corruption began to surface. Once again large crowds of Egyptians, said to number in the millions [for a fascinating take on the disputed numbers see Hugh Roberts in LRB–Eds], took to the streets—this time to register their disapproval of Morsi’s government. The military claimed to derive a popular mandate from these massive demonstrations and moved in to overthrow the Morsi government, imprison the deposed president, and launch…
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…n President Obama struggled to determine from which city he should deliver his address to the world’s many Muslims, he chose Cairo. Here’s another chance for a new beginning: A real message of hope and change to Egypt would ripple far across her borders….
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…ry. In Tunisia, the Islamists won a plurality of the vote; now, the latest news from Egypt suggests that the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, as well as the primary Salafi party, al-Nour, are doing quite well. (Jadaliyya has a great and exhaustive round-up, with all the detail you ever wanted). There will be three rounds of voting for the lower house of the Egyptian Parliament, and these results so far only reflect the first round….
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…n the day from Hakan, an activist with the KAOS GL organization. Also, the New York Times reported from Istanbul on the story of Mohammed, a 26-year old Iraqi: For Mohammed, an Iraqi civil engineer, the cruelest experience of his life was not when his father tortured him for being gay. It was not when Islamic State extremists took over the 26-year-old’s hometown in northern Iraq, forcing him to flee to Turkey. Or when he says he was almost raped a…
Read More…s of Egypt were in that Square. When anyone ever entered the Square, they knew they were seeing what Egypt really was, and it was inspiring to see it all in that microcosm, where plurality existed in an environment of peace and coexistence. As the weeks and months ahead unfold, its clear that there will be a need for even more civic actions that uphold the true lessons behind what transpired within the Square; whether in Egypt or abroad. Initiativ…
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…rofile articles about the Federalist Society and legal conservatism in the New Yorker, the Washington Post and Politico make no mention of natural law. Among scholars, Pomona College professor Amanda Hollis-Brusky has published well-regarded studies of the Federalist Society and of Christian conservative legal organizations. But particularly in her book on the Federalist Society, Hollis-Brusky misses out on a major part of the story. While “origin…
Read More…ve—and Syria was dominated by a secular Ba’ath party. Yet, as I wrote, the New York Times, America’s leading newspaper, irresponsibly confused religiosity with a lack of receptivity to democracy. (Then again, if you’re the majority, of course you’d support democracy—a principled stand is sometimes a partisan stand.) Following the latest in the Egyptian military’s unprovoked assaults on civilian protesters, who reasonably enough are furious with th…
Read More…in America, religion ought to influence government and enhance liberty, in Egypt, according to Huckabee, it can only lead to despotism. There is something inherently different about Egypt—something inherently different about the Arab world. Democracy won’t work there and we should just settle for stability, or so the narrative goes. The late Edward Said labeled this notion of inherent difference between the West and the East/Middle East “Orientali…
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…, prior to a military coup and unprecedented state-sponsored repression in Egypt, there was no terrorism in Egypt’s major cities. Recently, however, Cairo, Alexandria and other major Egyptian cities have been the sites of terrorist violence. Sadly, Egypt’s state-sponsored massacres, current torture programs, mass arrests, mass death sentences, and political exclusionism have made the nation a popular recruiting ground for Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Rather…
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…n German Church Life,” financed by the Protestant church. They published a new version of the New Testament, purged of positive references to Jews and Judaism, redefined Jesus as an Aryan Galilean, and downplayed the role of the Jewish apostle Paul. In addition to their New Testament they distributed a dejudaized hymnal and catechism to churches throughout the Nazi Reich. Grundmann argued that Jesus’ intimacy with God established a morality that w…
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