Religion Dispatches
…campaign, our evangelicals—including among them many of “my” Baptists—were promoting a slew of “social issues,” but precious little “gospel.” Self-proclaimed and media-designated evangelicals had done everything they could to defeat President Obama, and in the process they discredited the evangelical message and reduced it to a mere political gospel. From where I’m sitting, it’s obvious that they need to engage in the kind of soul-searching th…
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…p, filled with sadness for those who have died in America, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, and apprehension at the terrorism-related deaths to come. Our work as Americans and Muslims is far from done. The next morning, all I want to do is read news articles and listen to NPR, but the baby is grouchy, refusing food and wanting to be held. The more he grabs at my legs, the more irritated I become. Aggrieved, I take him to the other room…
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…enge for 9/11; bin Laden’s killing made the deaths of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan worthwhile; bin Laden’s killing proves torture works. Justice was served, people said, which is just a fancy, tricky, misleading way of saying “we got you back.” But justice and revenge are not the same thing. When I teach in college classrooms about torture, some of my students who support US-sanctioned torture justify their position by insisting that torturing…
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…the rapid victory (akin to the same national feeling after the invasion of Afghanistan, and again after the invasion of Iraq and rapid toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime) stressed war’s redeeming qualities for recapturing a national elan threatened by twins of industrialization and immigration, and the bitter social conflicts that arose from them. Those who decried this round of foreign adventurism, most notably Mark Twain, lambasted the hypocris…
Read More…l, his voice choked with emotion, recalled a Minnesota soldier who died in Afghanistan earlier this year, Corporal Andrew Wilfahrt, who was gay. “He was gay. He was gay. How can I tell his family that Corporal Wilfahrt was good enough to fight and die for his country, but he’s not good enough to marry someone he loves. I can’t do that!” He begged his fellow lawmakers to vote against the amendment and “stand up for freedom.” He said one day he woul…
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…xpression of meaning possible in American life, which is tantamount to the promotion of a kind of radical individualism. We are supposed to be a political community. Community requires some kind of creed—though not of course necessarily a religious creed. Silence is no substitute for communal expression, but some devotees of separation seem to feel that any communal expression of meaning is too close to religion to be permitted to the government….
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…in a way that Dickens would appreciate). With the help of his nubile young Indian-American assistant, Walter becomes complicit in Haven’s scheme to save a big chunk of West Virginia habitat for the endangered cerulean warbler. He continues even after learning that the price of creating the haven is that Haven will turn over a fifth of the acreage to coal operators who will use ruinous mountaintop removal techniques. Here coal sludge does superb me…
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…stake out positions on several issues, including a position on the war in Afghanistan that was actually to his challenger’s left. While 2010 was a year of surging conservatives and depressed progressives, it’s not yet clear what 2012 will bring. The only message in the losses of both Sestak and Halter is that Democrats in swing areas were swept out in 2010 whether progressive or not. Shuler’s Blue Dog caucus lost 24 of its 58 House seats in 2010,…
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…d, sending prayers over Michigan mosques “like sending special forces into Afghanistan.” And there are thousands of them, come because Pastor Lou Engle asked them to. Founder of TheCall, Engle warns that an Islamic movement is rising in Dearborn, Michigan—“Ground Zero” for America’s spiritual future (and site of a new TLC reality show, All-American Muslim). When I heard the goals for TheCall Detroit—healing America in a time of crisis, accomplishi…
Read More…why we weren’t as concerned about the Islamic nature of the “new” Iraq and Afghanistan. Omar Ashour speculates on the reason for the mention of Shari’ah, positing that firm references to the role of Islam might have something to do with appeasing the Islamist elements of Libya’s popular revolution. To begin, a brief primer. Shari’ah is not quite Islamic law. It is, rather, “the path to the water,” the sum total of God’s revelation to humanity, thr…
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