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Hajj Journal: Door Number 89: The Door with No Name

By Amina Wadud

…his is “the women’s section.” I noticed as I was walking through the first floor toward door number one, the kings’ door, on my way out after zuhr prayer one day. There it was: a whole section with all women in it. Not wanting to get my hopes up too high and then be disappointed (because this was at least 45 minutes after the prayer had ended), I ask the female guard, “al-Nisaa yajuz tusalli hinna?”—are women allowed to pray here? And she said, “y…

Build the Muslim Community Center at Ground Zero

By Donna Schaper

…hese are big words — hope, forgiveness and peace. They rarely have the megaphone that the party of “nope” enjoys. Nevertheless, they are words that religious people need to protect with all our hearts and souls. We too need a department of homeland security and its job is to protect our words. Let’s start with hope. When a tragedy happens, it often steals our hope. The 9-11 bombing is a terrible tragedy. It is a tragedy with causes in a larger hum…

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

By Rosamond C. Rodman

…sn’t long before it came to be known as “Shermageddon.” These references reflect something larger, truer, more apt than the events they were coined to describe—in Eliadian terms, they were profane events positioned within a sacred reality, namely the invocation of a biblical reference to Har Megiddo or Mount Megiddo (in the Hebrew Bible), a strategic hill upon which armed guards could protect (or conscript) valuables being transported along a majo…

An Open Letter to Black Clergy on the Disdain for Protest

By Rev. Osagyefo Sekou

…y or by a wannabe Martin Luther King. While the President sermonized about cheap grace, a daughter of the church climbed a flagpole and took down the American swastika. Like Mary and Elizabeth, Bree Newsome proclaimed that our salvation—wrapped in swaddling clothes—is here in our hands. As an ordained clergyperson nurtured in the bosom of the black church, I am all too familiar with the way in which we tend to spiritualize the material suffering o…

Hater Pastor Loses His Wife of 42 Years, Uses the Occasion to Trash Gays

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…dy and that is morally wrong.” But, using your wife’s death to score a few cheap political points against a group of people you hate isn’t “morally wrong”? But wait, there’s more! Garlow also uses his dead wife to point out just how fake the relationships between living, loving gay and lesbian partners really are. He talks about the delight he experienced being married to his wife, something gay and lesbian people certainly couldn’t have, right?…

The Same Toxic Christian Right Theology Supports Both the Online Bullying I Experienced and the Cruel Anti-Trans Policy in TX — And it’s Not Remotely Fringe

By Chrissy Stroop

…ully me and Du Mez on Twitter aren’t remotely fringe—they have power and influence. And it is they and their flocks who are making life increasingly difficult and, frankly, dangerous, for transgender Americans and members of other marginalized groups. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is somehow still in office despite being indicted on highly credible felony fraud charges in 2015, issued the legal opinion that Governor Greg Abbott used as th…

On the 40th Anniversary of Hyde, A Theological Defense of Reproductive Justice

By Anita Little

…y gospel” playing a role in the shaming of the poor. Could you explain the flawed theologies these politicians rely on to justify their position? The prosperity gospel—and I might get in trouble with some of my friends for this, but it’s the truth— spreads the idea of the “ATM Jesus.” If you just do the things they tell you to do in church, trust in God and give sacrificially to the church, you will be blessed with financial prosperity. It is root…

Note for Today

By Amina Wadud

…ps, dresses, and scarves. I feel like I need one more scarf. Not for sheer number, but for style; there are so many styles, and one has to decide what works best individually. I have my long prayer scarves that do not need any pins to be neatly kept in place. But they are really long, and I wish I had at least one as neat, but shorter. I want to be hands-free and secure at the same time. I have long rectangular shapes that get draped, and I will u…

Dispatches from the Election: Around the Moon, Safely

By Glenn W. Smith

…a little rebellious, though never so dangerously out-of-control as a Nixon Flu-infected media still likes to pretend. Not long after our first trips to the Moon, American soldiers shot down American students at Kent State. There was the secret bombing of Cambodia. The Watergate break-in. The first international oil embargo and the disappearance of cheap gas. The US embassy rooftop retreat in Saigon. Disco. Nixon’s resignation took out a symbol of…

House GOP Hires Lawyer to Prevent Federal Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…gths, and the great expense of a high-power law firm, to try to score some cheap political points on the backs of same-sex couples.” I suppose Boehner can pander to the religious right and continue to defend “traditional” marriage, but I think it’s fair to ask why—when jobless rates continue to hover near 10 percent—which issue may be most important to God: how people arrange their intimate relationships, or how we feed and care for those families…