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For God or for Fame? The Making of a Teenage Bomber

By Kambiz GhaneaBassiri

…never even met Mohamud. “He ruined it for everybody,” a 24-year-old Somali Portlander told The Oregonian. Another Somali-American employed at the city of Portland’s Office of Human Relations said, “As a Somali, it’s, ‘Oh, my God, one more thing we’ll be remembered for.’” Five Choices, if You’re a Muslim Media images of Muslims do not only shape the experiences of Muslims in this country; they also shape non-Muslims’ experiences of Muslims. This i…

Atheist Nazis? The Pope’s Cheap Atonement

By Susannah Heschel

Adam Clayton Powell called it “cheap grace,” but we might call it “cheap atonement”: the effort by sinners to select which sins to acknowledge and repent. Pope Benedict XVI ended his heavily protested visit to England with a heartfelt apology for German bombings of England during the Battle of Britain; though he refused to accept Christian responsibility for the Holocaust, blaming it instead on pagans and atheists. Given that Cardinal Walter Kasp…

Historian Matthew Stewart Upends the Widespread Belief that 19th Century U.S. Christianity Was On ‘The Right Side of History’

By Peter Laarman

…de sure that Lincoln read Parker’s voluminous speeches and articles (which Lincoln was happy to do). In fact, Lincoln’s famous line about a “house divided” originated with Parker. The energetic and prodigiously gifted Parker, still claimed by today’s Unitarians as a denominational demigod, was, back in January of 1843, actually chucked out by the Unitarians during a tight-lipped confrontation over teacups. His chief accuser was the exalted head of…

Creationism and Evolution are Competing ‘Myths’

By Kelly E. Hayes

…sis story of creation is science and not theology? This is precisely where Lincoln’s notion of myth is helpful in understanding how narratives function, not only as explanatory frameworks but as ideological mechanisms that construct certain kinds of social relations by eliciting powerful sentiments of affiliation or estrangement. The Instrumentality of Myth: Genesis and Evolution There are two contrasting accounts of the cosmos and its multitudino…

Glenn Beck’s Cheap Grace

By Karyn Carlo

…way from the hard work of repentance, who tickle our ears with promises of cheap grace, and offer a vision of the cross of Jesus that has nothing to say to the crosses, and lynching trees, of history. But, if we do, we will be settling for the gospel of Caesar, not the good news of Jesus Christ. Perhaps it is time to put down the chalk, stop drawing pyrotechnical conspiracy theories that play into our worst fears and listen, instead, for the diffi…

Jesus, Gentrification, and the Hypocrisy of “Diversity”: An Interview with D.L. Mayfield

By Kaya Oakes

…stipend from the government (and we live in the most affordable section of Portland). Very soon indeed there will be very little room for anyone from the lower or working classes to survive—and I want to make a huge stink about that. Our city will lose out on the blessings of God if we don’t create pathways for people on the margins to live here. People in places like Portland especially say they want diversity but this isn’t true at all. They wan…

Sacred Real Estate: What Makes Washington’s WWII Memorial So Dreadful?

By Michael A. Elliott

…ent, an unlikely harbinger of modernism when it was completed in 1885. The Lincoln Memorial invites a kind of reverential contemplation in the visitor—a rare feat for such an iconic locale—and even compels many of them into a careful reading of two rhetorical masterpieces, The Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s second inaugural. And Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial is nothing short of the most significant piece of public sculpture of the late tw…

Not Quite the Abraham Lincoln of the Anti-Marriage Equality Movement

By Peter Montgomery

…e National Organization for Marriage, fancied herself a modern-day Abraham Lincoln. NOM calls her testimony against marriage equality in Rhode Island “The Gettysburg Address of the Marriage Movement.” That would be a bold assertion for any political speech, but it’s just laughable when applied to Morse’s bitter diatribe. Morse recounts all the terrible things she fully expects that the legislature, and gay rights supporters generally, are going to…

A Meditation on Shopping and Desire

By Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado

…We have an unprecedented access to cheap goods, yet we must recognize that cheap goods are cheaply made. I am not speaking of quality, I am speaking of cheap labor. We must recognize that through the act of shopping, whether it is for an article of clothing, a toy, a pint of strawberries, or even our morning cup of coffee, we participate in a global economy that values profit over people. Disposable goods are made by disposable people, faceless in…

Are Evangelical Films Destined to Leave Secular Audiences Behind?

By Daniel Silliman

…e success either. The opening weekend saw sales of more than $6 million in tickets. That’s the kind of number that will inspire others to try and figure out the formula for the faith-and-family blockbuster. Yet, with the cost of the film reportedly exceeding $30 million, it’s an open question whether or not the Left Behind reboot will get a second installment. The marketing problem of evangelical movies is still, stubbornly, a problem. The general…