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C Street Scandal, the Media, the Future of the Family: An Interview with Jeff Sharlet

By Bill Berkowitz

…et, author of 2008’s The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, talks about The Family and its summer of scandal, the organization’s tarnished present and future possibilities, and why the mainstream media had such a difficult time dealing with the group’s unusual political/religious beliefs. First off, tell us three critical things we should know about The Family? Jeff Sharlet: The Family is the oldest and arguably mos…

Jesus Goes to the Dark Carnival: Hell House Gets a Makeover?

By W. Scott Poole

…w production values whichever you choose. Not unlike the Hell Houses, they manage to put together the strangest and most unappealing images of heaven (in this next clip be sure to catch the guy in the Michigan jersey getting a bear hug from Jesus at 2:04) and the most infantile images of hell you can imagine. It is true that the messages are often much more implicit, suggesting that the Judgement House phenomenon can be interpreted very much an ou…

Hitchens Debates Conservative Evangelical: Nothing Happens

By Eric Reitan

…is that so long as both parties are well-matched, and so long as they both manage to get in a few good arguments, a few moments of mesmerizing rhetoric, or a few clever put-downs that get the fans cheering, both sides can declare victory. There is no official scoreboard, and each can return to his respective constituencies at the end of the day and spin the contest as a win. Wilson can go back to his evangelical fan base and say, as he did in the…

New York Times Columnist Peter Steinfels’ Letter To RD; With Author Response

By Mark D. Jordan

…January 2. In that column, he writes, I “reflected on the polarization of American religious rhetoric.” Wrong. Even a cursory reading of that column would see that the sentence he quotes was not part of a general reflection on American religious rhetoric. It was part of a valedictory reflection on the (quite reasonable) journalistic constraints governing the Beliefs column and the personal challenge of writing it. Here is the sentence that Jordan…

A Muslim Reflects on Christian Theologian (and UCLA Coach) John Wooden

By Amir Hussain

…described “Christian athletes” who can glibly quote Bible verses but can’t manage to live by them. Coach, as always, was different. We both agreed that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest American, but he said that the greatest person of his generation was Mother Teresa. Like her, he lived out his Christianity in service to others. In 2005, I moved from a secular religious studies department at Cal State Northridge to a department of theological stud…

Palin Talks Israel in Anticipation of 2012

By Shalom Goldman

…ionist policies. Still, there’s a good chance that aid to Israel, like the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will manage to be exempt from their ire. The billions of dollars spent every month on the two wars (and over 270 American military bases around the world) are somehow not a sign of “big government” for the Tea Party faithful. Late last month, in a trenchant article for The Nation, Princeton lecturer Melissa Harris-Perry sought to expla…

Gun Ownership: ‘An Obligation to God’

By Julie Ingersoll and Sarah Posner

…h the Tea Party finds its roots. He was a speaker at the Reconstructionist American Vision’s annual “Worldview Conference” in 2009, has been a member of the Council for National Policy, and is a longtime homeschooling advocate from a Reconstructionist perspective. In 1996 he was the running mate of conservative icon (and Christian Reconstructionist) Howard Phillips for the far-right US Taxpayers Party (now called the Constitution Party) whose plat…

Overcoming Good Muslim/Bad Muslim Dichotomy

By Hussein Rashid

…plies they have not. It is this formulation to which I am objecting. Other American Muslims, and American Muslim organizations have done so. 3. At no point do I suggest that you are insensitive to other Muslims and I link directly to the “Muslims for Peace” campaign. 4. Regarding your point that neither of the op-ed authors were speaking on behalf of the community is a valid. I did indicate that in my piece and I should have known better. It appea…

I Am Better than Him

By Amina Wadud

…-age life style has led her to a level of arrogance I can sometimes barely manage to abide by. I think it is good and necessary for all human beings to continually make choices that they think will improve the quality of their lives: food, clothing, spirituality, geography— whatever it takes. But I am clear that there are no choices that anyone makes which earns them the place better than others who make different choices. So, it is better for not…

The Night of Power: Laylatul Qadri

By Amina Wadud

…eturning to the mosque after midnight. I had no major epiphany and did not manage to do the one thing I had hoped to do on a practical level—and that was complete the remaining few parts of the Qur’an. Just to have that sense of accomplishment. I guess I can say, I did not get a lightbulb moment. Neither the grandiose kind of “experiencing” the power of Laylatul Qadri, or the pragmatic kind of a job well done. Our weekend retreat is done, most of…