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American Conservatives, Jewish Law, and Israel’s New Abortion Policy

…tiny community of Messianic Jews, whose efforts, in turn, are supported by American conservative Christians. To the extent American evangelicals are supporting the growth of Messianic Judaism in Israel, it appears to be far more focused on bringing Jews to Christ than challenging Israel’s abortion laws. The Messianic Jews focus their efforts on another American export: the crisis pregnancy center. But the crisis pregnancy center is not the phenome…

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Why Did a Muslim Civil Rights Group Oppose Democrats’ Plans to Confront White Nationalism?

…t be to be included. But Islamophilia can also perpetuate the interests of American militarism: American Muslims’ military service and love of country become prerequisites for inclusion. The terms of such inclusion were never laid out more clearly than by Bill Clinton at the 2016 Democratic National Convention: “If you’re a Muslim and you love America and freedom and you hate terror, stay here and help us win and make a future together, we want yo…

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Pawlenty Stars in American Civil Religion: The Movie

…d images of Pawlenty himself. Pawlenty sets up himself and these “everyday Americans” as the symbols of the Puritan-American work ethic. Finally, our exceptionalism and our hard work give Americans a special destiny. The third myth in the ad is Manifest Destiny, the narrative from American history that argues a special purpose for our country to spread its influence around the world. In the 19th century, Manifest Destiny meant expansion out west….

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In Trump Era, Young Muslims Question Respectability Politics of Mosques

…one else stopped showing up.” A PRRI poll showed that 42 percent of Muslim Americans approve of same-sex marriage. To many younger American Muslims, the benefits of allying with other marginalized groups on issues such as LGBTQ inclusion and immigration reform seem clear. But institutional Islam has not kept up. Many Muslim American leaders, organizations and institutions are working to broaden the sphere of engagement. Muslim American organizatio…

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Robert Bellah’s Powerful Legacy: A Mixed Blessing for Religious Studies?

…e made a point of situating his notion of civil religion in a specifically American context. Bellah’s American civil religion appealed explicitly to Biblical archetypes like “God,” “Election,” “Providence” and such. They fit comfortably into the vocabulary and practices of American civil religion because of the very different historical conditions of the American founding. A notion like sacrificial death, for instance, found ready appeal at a time…

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Let’s Get Lost: Mapping Religion in the 21st Century

…ch as Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis’s Digital Atlas of American Religion—to the narrow—the Hindu American Foundation’s map of Hindus worldwide (with accompanying demographic information comparing “Hindus/Asian/Indian” favorably on various socioeconomic rankings to other racial and nationality categories). Unlike other kinds of maps, maps of American religion must negotiate the difficulty of that term—what counts, what doesn’t,…

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On Zion’s Mount

…re essentially Christian Zionists. Their “homeland” mentality was quite un-American. True, many American groups, not just hyperreligious ones, have looked upon the United States as a providential nation; a place prepared for them by God. But a providential nation is different than a providential homeland. The word “homeland” has become so charged—and now so banal—since 9/11 that we have forgotten that the United States is, in terms of political sc…

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Two people on a podium with a board that reads "Project 2025 kills democracy"

Project 2025: How Trump Loyalists and Right-Wing Leaders Are Paving a Fast Road to Fascism

…gressive gains merits more than our attention; it calls for action to help Americans understand just how dramatically right-wing reactionaries intend to transform American society, and how to effectively mobilize resistance to their well-funded schemes.   Endnotes [1] Jill Covan and Bill Barrow, “Trump vow to only be a dictator on ‘day one’ follows growing worry over his authoritarian rhetoric,” Associated Press, December 7, 2023, https://apnews.c…

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Reading Beinart and Lerner as Gaza Burns

…s astute as Beinart and Lerner, who have contributed so much to the Jewish American turn toward peace, stumble a bit at that second step. They do us a great service when they focus on the crucial role of the Jewish narrative of victimization, which so many American writers tend to overlook (while Israelis as well as Palestinians routinely see it as the crux of the problem). But in subtle ways both of these authors show themselves not quite able to…

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Will the Religious Side with Workers?

…ideology has always been a major factor in maintaining a distance between American religionists and American trade unionists. In the minds of many of the faithful, taking collective action to raise a barn is just fine, thank you. Taking collective action to preserve your dignity and make advances at the workplace is an entirely different matter. It smacks of an un-American and vaguely socialist mindset. See below. A still-active “Protestant Ethic…

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