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Liberals Agree, Israel is Greatest Thing Since Sliced Challah

By Shalom Goldman

…mium for the Jewish state: It is, for its region in particular, a model of Western values, a country in possession of a robustly independent judiciary; a boisterous, appropriately unkempt press; a mature and activist civil society; and an assortment of fearless and effective human rights organizations. In other words, despite Israel’s critics and their rhetorical excesses, the dominant American Jewish (and Christian Zionist) mythology about the St…

Sin is Not a Crime: A Conversation with Patrick Cheng

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…s model—even though it’s ancient and in some ways even more beautiful than Western notions of sin and grace that we’ve inherited. Those in the moveable middle or a little bit to the right are longing for ways to heal themselves, and I think that this crime-based Augustinian model may have hurt them too. My experience has been that when these people hear this it opens their eyes in ways that is healing for them. They can be more compassionate to ot…

Did the Dalai Lama Just Call for an End to Religion?

By Richard Schiffman

…Some have pointed to Buddhism itself as an example of just such a system. Western practitioners like to think of Buddhism as a methodology for self-cultivation rather than as a religion per se. But Tibetan Buddhism, with its pantheon of deities and arcane practices, certainly looks familiarly religious to those of us brought up on Western religious myths and symbols. I suspect that His Holiness would agree that these religious elements are not a…

Billy Graham, Most Famous Religious Figure of 20th C, Dies at 99

By Randall Balmer

…eeded still more education, however, he enrolled at Wheaton College in the western suburbs of Chicago. There he met, and eventually married, Ruth McCue Bell, daughter of missionaries to China, who had initially resisted the advances of the young preacher because he did not aspire to be a missionary. By the time he graduated from Wheaton College in 1943, Graham had developed the simple, earnest preaching style for which he would become famous. Earl…

Staged Pussy Riot Trial Interrupted by Russian Authorities

By Chrissy Stroop

…e day the verdict was read out, continues both to attract the attention of Western intellectuals and artists and to be a thorn in the side of Russian authorities and the Russian Orthodox Church. Here in Russia, where a September poll revealed that 78% of the population found the Pussy Riot verdict either “appropriate” or “insufficient,” and only 14% found it “excessive,” there seems to be little hope for a meaningful dialogue between those on oppo…

Forget the Pope—We Need a New Caliph!

By Haroon Moghul

…Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. He speaks English well and is fond of Western culture, which is unsurprising considering he’s one of the few remaining staunch uncritical allies of America in the Middle East. His main talent seems to be preternatural gift at self-preservation. Also maybe some Americans will think he’s the King of Michael Jordan, and that’ll be a step in the right direction. The Bad: After a surprisingly candid interview with J…

Female Breadwinners=Death of Civilization, Says Fox Panel

By Melissa Weininger

…h society was abnormal and unnatural and needed to be brought in line with Western bourgeois values in which women remained in the household while men earned. Contemporary ultra-Orthodox communities, still vehemently rejecting the bourgeois Western values of enlightenment, continue to insist that the “natural” arrangement of the household is for women to work outside the home to support their scholar husbands. Nature, it seems, takes many forms. T…

Burma Bans Time Magazine’s “Buddhist Terror” Issue

By Alan Senauke

…and thousands of homes consumed in flames. Last year’s conflict in Burma’s western Rakhine state, also saw thousands of homes destroyed and roughly a hundred thousand people displaced—mostly Muslims—in ethnic violence between Buddhist Rakhines and Muslim Rohingyas. There has been violence on both sides. Recent rioting in Lashio began when a Muslim man attacked a Buddhist woman shopkeeper—but in each of these instances the preponderance of organize…

Meditation is Not Religion or Spirituality—It’s Technology

By Jay Michaelson

…w. I wanted to tell the story of a phenomenon that is rapidly changing the Western world—the mass adoption of meditation—but I also wanted to tell it from a personal point of view, about my own winding road in practice and how it’s impacted my life. It’s corny but I really do think that contemplative practice may change the world. I don’t know of a better way to help us become better animals than we might otherwise be. What’s the most important ta…

A Seminary for Nonbelievers: Is A. C. Grayling Creating His Own Religion?

By Jessica Weisberg

…ature, or philosophy. History students will have a course on the “birth of Western Christendom” and philosophy students may take an elective in “medieval philosophy,” but there is no religious studies department. There’s a required elective on “the nature of good and the good life.” The curriculum bypasses cultural history and postmodernism in favor of a more rigorous study of the classics. “My guess is that religion will be included in a similar…