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American Jewish Leaders Get Gaza Wrong

By Sarah Posner

…this Israeli government. And that alienation exists even though Birthright offers young American Jews a Disney-fied Israel experience that evades the harsh realities of Palestinian life in the West Bank.” What does the attachment mean, exactly, even for kids who haven’t gone on Birthright? Are they attached to Israel the idea, or Israel the reality, occupation and all? The Reform Movement is trying very hard to attract and retain young people in i…

All-American Muslim is Just TV, Folks

By Zeba Iqbal

…A few Sundays ago, I watched the premiere of the first TV series featuring American Muslims, TLC’s All-American Muslim. Reality TV, like Broadway musicals, is not my preferred genre. Yet, as with Bombay Dreams, I made an exception and watched the show—along with 1.7 million others, as it turns out. I have limited expectations of reality TV and so maybe my bar was too low, but I actually enjoyed it. That is until about fifteen minutes into the show…

How AIDS Changed the Way American Christians Talk About Sex

By Anthony Petro

…terosexuality (and the immorality of homosexuality). Over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, a number of Christian denominations and churches found that they really had to discuss the HIV/AIDS crisis, because it was a pressing local and national concern. And to do so, they had to talk about sex, including homosexuality. It turns out, the things they had to say about AIDS and about sex proved far more diverse than Christian Right rhetoric pronounci…

Former Employees: Racism & Abuse in Leading Religious Right Org.

By Sarah Posner

…uths Shut” Martha Swindle, who worked as the elder Wildmon’s secretary from 1991 until 1999, when he fired her, said that he was perceived by donors to be a “great conservative leader,” and that, “while I was there, the majority of funding came from $10 and $15 donations, people who believed in what AFA stood for.” Swindle, too, believed in that vision, until Wildmon started “snooping” through her desk drawers and even her trash, she believes, ult…

Where Polls and Surveys Fall Short: A Conversation with Robert Wuthnow on “Inventing American Religion”

By Andrew Aghapour

…d and fifty of those are going to be white respondents and somewhere around 12% or 13% are going to be African Americans. Pollsters, first of all, get results that mostly pertain to the white majority. Secondly, they often ask questions that reflect white majority trends and, thirdly, since the response rates are so bad, they may weight the data in a way that reflects the white majority better than the African-American minority. One of the consequ…

Christians of Color Are Rejecting “Colonial Christianity” and Reclaiming Ancestral Spiritualities

By Deborah Jian Lee

…ss.” The modern American Christian contemplative movement sprung out of the 1960s and 1970s, a time when globalization exposed Americans to eastern traditions like Hinduism and Buddhism. In turn, Christian monastics and lay leaders, like Trappist monk Thomas Keating, began to offer Christian contemplative exercises like centering prayer—a silent, meditative practice. Pasquale Mateus explains that the movement filtered through predominantly white c…

On Zion’s Mount

By Jared Farmer

…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…

In Trump Era, Young Muslims Question Respectability Politics of Mosques

By Hebah H. Farrag

…ntinued vilification of Islam in the American public sphere since September 11th, American Muslim houses of worship and organizations have worked against policies that visibly target Muslims such as profiling, denial of First Amendment rights and harassment by law enforcement. In doing so, these institutions work to gain public recognition, inclusion and representation, as well as the ability to help shape public policy. This narrow focus on “Musl…

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

By Elizabeth Shakman Hurd and Brannon Ingram

…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…

Mitt’s Jesus, Barack’s Jesus, and Why Christ’s Color Matters

By Joanna Brooks

…quite intention. Madison Grant (the spokesman for “Nordic whiteness” in the 1910s and 1920s) discussed explicitly Jesus as “Nordic” as part of his attack upon immigration from Asia and Southern and Eastern Europe. Klan members of his age, likewise, linked the racial body of Jesus to their racial national view. Of course, other times, the imaging is unintentional or at least never spoken. When Mormons erected the Christus statue in the middle of th…