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How Trump’s Assertion of “Power to Pardon” Tramples the American Sacred

By Spencer Dew

…lues, values which Philip Gorski, in his recent and impassioned defense of American civil religion, American Covenant, expands beyond simply freedom to include equality, “national solidarity (‘We, the People, in order to form a more perfect union’), the common good (or ‘general welfare’) and active citizenship,” suggesting that “civic inclusion and recognition should perhaps be added to our national creed as well.” Tyranny isn’t merely the opposit…

What is Juneteenth to America? It Has to Be More Than ‘Black 4th of July’ if It’s to Be Truly Meaningful

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…Black life does in fact matter on a national scale which requires African Americans and all other Americans to see within the Black celebration of emancipation the universal human desire to be free from oppression. Secondly, Juneteenth must not repeat the mistakes of the inclusion of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr holiday in the American civil calendar. The transformation of the radical message and legacy of Dr. King’s life into a bland “day of servi…

Reading Racism: In Confronting White Christian Fragility ‘Feeling’ is as Important as Ideas

By SueJeanne Koh

…o longer feel like a threat or problem, but a realization of hope for “a more perfect union.” It is to echo, in a different way, Du Bois’s insistence—that one can be Hindu and American, Muslim and American, Buddhist and American; and that perhaps this possibility can lead to transformation for us all….

Moses on the Mayflower: Was the Prophet a Founding Father?

By Linell Cady

…al one, believing that the “front line” of the battle is back home. In his new book America’s Prophet: Moses and the American Story Feiler wades into the religiously charged culture wars to promote Moses and the biblical story of Exodus as the unifying narrative for American identity and values. Although he uncovers fascinating tidbits along the way, and highlights some of the often overlooked ingredients in American political life, his overall re…

Peter Beinart’s Controversial The Crisis of Zionism: Right Diagnosis, Wrong Treatment

By Shaul Magid

…en read the book, due largely to Beinart’s 2010 essay, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment” published in The New York Review of Books which had already made him the heretic of American Jewry’s “I Stand with Israel” community. Of course, The Israel Lobby and The Crisis of Zionism are quite different. The former, whether you agree with it or not, was written by two respected political scientists and makes a provocative, even incendiary…

State of the Union Stuck in that Olde-Time Semi-Niebuhrianism

By Ira Chernus

…. But he went further, making the newfound clamor for “civility” a mark of American exceptionalism: All American children share “the dreams of a little girl in Tucson”; all Americans believe that those dreams “deserve the chance to be fulfilled”; and that shared belief “sets us apart as a nation.” As commentators quickly dubbed the president’s optimistic, future-oriented SOTU rhetoric “Reaganesque,” I thought of Garry Wills’ clever term for The Gi…

Occultism and New Age Take Off in Iran: An Interview with Alireza Doostdar

By Alireza Doostdar

…, I realized something that surprised me even more: I had assumed that the New Age was new to Iran in the 21st century; but in fact, its European esotericist precursors had been around for at least a century earlier. And so I examined what I believe to be the beginnings of European-imported spirituality: French Kardecist Spiritism in the early twentieth century, and a number of other currents that emerged around the same time (Theosophy, mesmerism…

No, I Don’t Owe My Yoga Mat to Vivekananda

By Andrea R. Jain

…cans who sought to counter mainstream institutional forms of religion with new metaphysical movements, such as Christian Science and New Thought. He encouraged his disciples to turn inward, toward the self, rather than outward, toward either Christian or Hindu orthodoxies. Vivekananda responded to Americans interested in wedding metaphysics with modern ideas and values as well as the aim of self-realization. In all of these ways, he appealed to an…

Ross Douthat’s Rosy Old-Time Religion

By Jerome E. Copulsky

…ruit. But this heretical American spiritual seeking is not really anything new, of course. For generations, Americans have been a religiously promiscuous people, attracted to all forms of non-orthodox beliefs and practices. What Douthat sees may be more of a hastening than a transformation. Moreover, we should pay attention to the way in which Douthat frames his assault on modern heresy, which reveals, I believe, his deeper motivations and fears. …

Beinart’s Indictment And The Evangelical Right

By Sarah Posner

…the close ties between these organizations and the apocalyptic wing of the American evangelical world — and the American Jewish establishment bears blame for glorifying that relationship, as well as for its role in the destruction of democracy in Israel, and of liberal Zionism. (For example, I have reported on two of the organizations Beinart discusses, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Conference of Presidents of Major American…