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An Open Letter to Black Clergy on the Disdain for Protest

By Rev. Osagyefo Sekou

…famous Palestinian—Jesus of Nazareth. In this time that’s dedicated to a poor child born to an unwed mother, my conscience has forced my hand to the page. The disdain for protest within our blessed community has troubled my spirit to the point that I cannot sleep. It is with great trepidation that I write you as your son—heavy-hearted and ashamed. Having been baptized into the faith at 15, my formative years were shaped by the best of the black p…

‘We’re all in this together’: The Perils of Kumbaya Rhetoric

By Peter Laarman

…e crisis has already condemned low-income families to a shocking level of food insecurity, with one-fifth of American kids now at risk of going to bed hungry each night. Many of those forced to work—especially women of color—will sicken and die in a too-rapid “reopening” aimed at saving businesses. The rapidly widening divide between wage workers and cosseted “knowledge workers” has become scandalously apparent. Economic insecurity for many of tho…

Hajj Journal: Tawaf: How I Fell in Love…

By Amina Wadud

…or hajj tamattu’ in such a way as to arrive in Makkah as close to the new moon as possible for the Zhul-Hijjah, or 12th lunar month. This is approximately one week before the hajj begins on the 8th day. When you first see the Ka’abah, you are supposed to say certain du’a (including asking for ANYTHING you want), and then make two rakaats. Most people are so overwhelmed at the sight of it, they simply dissolve into tears. For Muslims, this is the p…

The Bible is a Good Book, But God Didn’t Write It

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…he Word of God.” Mohler will find verification of his view in Spong’s new book Reclaiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World. Right there, on page 15, Spong writes: “I do not think for one moment that Bible is any literal sense the ‘Word of God.’” This book is Spong’s way of putting the Bible back in its right perspective—as a collection of “tribal” stories that sprang from “the experience of human beings seeking to make sense out of the life the…

A Shining City: The Occupy Movement and the American Soul

By Elizabeth Drescher

On a beautiful early autumn afternoon, loosely organized groups of mostly young adults gathered in the shadow of the St. Louis Gateway Arch, symbol of a bygone vision of American progress, economic hope, and nascent global expansionism. Women wore shiny off-the-shoulder dresses and ridiculously high-heeled shoes. They sipped from splits of cheap sparkling wine while their tuxedoed companions swilled the local brew, Budweiser—that, too, a faded Am…

Richard Dawkins’ Atheist Academy of Unguided Truth

By Paul Wallace

…. The occasion for the profile is the upcoming release of his children’s book, The Magic of Reality. Near the bottom of the last page the article reads: [Dawkins] wants to raise questions—Why is there a sun? What is an earthquake? What about rainbows?—and provide clever, rational answers. He has toyed with opening his own state-sponsored school, though under the British system he would have to come up with matching money. But it would not be a s…

Gas For Two Bucks a Gallon? Bachmann Taps a Pipeline to the American Sacred

By Rosamond C. Rodman

…in that most cryptic of texts, Revelation, and that one reference is none too clear, only suggesting a gathering of kings for the purposes of battle “at the place that in Hebrew is called Harmagedon” (Rev 16:16, NRSV). But Americans love apocalypses, so in the hands of late nineteenth and early twentieth century pre-millenialists, the term “Armageddon” was used as a kind of blanket locative to refer to the entire region of Palestine/Israel, where…

Fear of a Catholic Ghetto

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…ings, Christopher T. Haley likewise warns that the religious exemption is too narrow to accommodate faithful Catholic health care. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, he says, would create a “Catholic ghetto.” Currently, Catholic health care institutions are indispensable in the United States, comprising 20% of U.S. hospitals. Those hospitals, in turn, receive large amounts of public funding. Catholic hospitals are so well-integrated,…

On Eve of Sudan Split Clashes Continue

By Ashley Makar

[Parts of this essay first appeared in Tablet Magazine.] Sudan will soon split in two: an African Christian-majority South and an Arab Muslim-majority North. On July 9, the Southern Sudanese government is expected to declare independence from the Islamist regime in Khartoum, the final step in the process that will officially end a half-century of civil wars. But the prospects of a peaceful independence day look bleak. There is renewed conflict i…

Build the Muslim Community Center at Ground Zero

By Donna Schaper

…Initiative is an established mosque in Tribeca, the New York City neighborhood around the corner from Ground Zero. For 23 years they have worshipped in the neighborhood and been a part of it. So far the wider community response is loud, mean and ugly. “No,” they say. Such an act would be sacrilegious and involve the people whose loved ones died at ground zero in unnecessary reviving of grief. Besides the fact that such animosity will only lead to…