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Reading Beinart and Lerner as Gaza Burns

By Ira Chernus

…he [imagined] danger through aggression and power.” As Beinart argues, the number of American Jews who act out of fantasied oppression is declining. But their political strength remains much greater than their numbers. Yet curiously Lerner, the professional psychologist, downplays this and the other psychological wellsprings of support for militant Zionism. Instead he focuses time and again on compassion for the very real historical sufferings of…

US Archbishop and Vatican-Appointed “Overseer” Attends Annual Meeting of Women Religious

By Emily Baxter

…ble as equals in the eyes of the Church. The outgoing LCWR President, Sr. Frances Deacon, offered a closing speech that did not let that reality go by: she spoke on the history of and need for greater involvement of women within the Church. She said, “Our situation reflects larger questions and concerns such as…the ecclesial roles of women religious and of the laity, especially women; understandings of authority, faithful dissent, and obedience a…

Violent, Genocidal Anti-Palestinian Rhetoric Moving to US?

By David Sheen

…se, his funeral last October was the largest in the country’s history, with 800,000 Israelis attending. In the past month, Rabbi Noam Perel, head of Bnei Akiva, the largest Jewish religious youth group in the world, called for the mass-murder of Palestinians and for their foreskins to be scalped and brought back as trophies, alluding to an episode in the Book of Samuel; and a Jerusalem city councillor, in charge of security, encouraged a crowd to…

What Coverage of a Fatal Orthodox Baptism Reveals About Western Media

By Katherine Kelaidis

…mportant marker of Eastern Christian identity—particularly as increasingly numbers of Eastern Christians became the simultaneous targets of Western crusaders and Islamic conquerors. In this context, rigid adherence to liturgical customs became a means by which to assert and preserve identity in the face of colonization and oppression. Conversely, adherence to Christian practices abandoned by the Christian West—if not in the Middle Ages then certai…

Air Kissing the Mezuzah: Religion and Science Collide in Fight Against Virus

By Shalom Goldman

…seven million people. (According to the World Health Organization more than 800 people around the world have died from this flu.) Flying over Israel and taking one’s prayers a little closer to the heavens might seem like a recent rabbinic innovation, but it is not. Actually, there were a number of precedents for such prayer flights; one as early as 1942, when the Jews of British Mandatory Palestine feared that the Nazis would break through the Bri…

Lifestyles of the Rich and Pious

By Patricia Miller

CNN’s Belief Blog has a great rundown of the lavish homes of American archbishops who haven’t gotten the memo from Pope Francis about a “church which is poor and for the poor.” CNN reports that “10 of the 34 active archbishops in the United States live in buildings worth more than $1 million.” The median home value in the U.S. is $174,200. Not surprisingly, that list includes some of the nation’s most outspoken conservative bishops—and allies of…

Play to Extinction: Religious Groups Unite Against Predatory Gambling

By Frederick Clarkson

…s were legal in two states in 1985 (Nevada and New Jersey). Today there are 800,000 machines in 40 states. The new generation of electronic “slots” do not even use coins. You purchase and swipe an electronic card like you do at the ATM. The addictive nature of the electronic slots and their role as the main revenue stream of the gambling industry is not widely understood. Industry data show that 70-80% of the revenue of casinos come from these mac…

Culture Wars Today, Tomorrow, and Forever?

By Bill Berkowitz

…uld arugue since the results came in on November 4). Earlier this month, a number of Christian and secular conservative organizations mounted an impressive effort aimed at taking down David Ogden, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be deputy attorney general. While the campaign failed in its objective—it appears that Ogden will get the Justice Department post—it reminded us of the tenacity of the Christian right campaigns. Consider these headline…

Don’t Blame Black Voters: The Obama Non-Effect

By Jonathan L. Walton

…nce of these demographics on the state electorate in relation to the small number of African Americans, it is inconceivable to argue that African Americans are to blame. The fault lines of a progressive coalition to resist Prop. 8 were seemingly regional and religious as opposed to racially determined. Do Black Folks Need an Elton John? Scapegoating black folks is descriptively flawed because it pits a racial group against a multiracial reality. B…

Why Bill Maher Gets a “C” in My Introduction to Religion Class…

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…pages I’ll confine myself to Religulous.) This is the kind of thing a fair number of my students, raised in the Protestant-dominated United States (even Catholics and Jews have assimilated this definition), come to university thinking about religion; the two key components of which are “belief” and “God.” Religion is some cryptic interior, individual thing that exists in one’s own head, and is only understood in relation to a God. I don’t blame my…