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Why are Nuns and Monks in the Streets? (Parts I & II)

By José Cabezón

…etocentric worldview of monks. By restricting the monastic population to a number just large enough to run monasteries and to provide “costumed natives” for the tourist industry, Chinese government policymakers are privileging values like political stability, the physical preservation of monastic institutions as historical/cultural “relics,” and the tangible economic gains derived from treating these institutions as tourist venues. When they objec…

Review: Jews in America: Anti-Semitism, Class Struggle, Secularism

By David Biale

…entity, although it may equally signal the priority of the Jewish over the American. “Jewish Americans,” while superficially equivalent to “Italian Americans,” has never enjoyed the same usage. In titling their PBS documentary The Jewish Americans, these filmmakers have therefore made a telling statement. After three and a half centuries of struggling to become American, the Jews have finally come “home” (incidentally, the title of part three of t…

Billy Graham and the Gospel of American Nationalistic Christianity

By Anthea Butler

…f television and visual culture. Standing like a blonde icon of white male American power, his good looks and message would carry him all over the world as a representative of American power and the nation’s Christian faith. Graham’s preaching and evangelistic crusades are what many will remember him for, but Graham’s unique position as an exceptional articulator of American political power is equally a part of his legacy. This was on display when…

Among the Problems with Trump’s Proposed Ban: Who is a Muslim?

By Michael Schulson

…the United States, where there are substantial Arab-American, South Asian-American, African-American, and Latino Muslim populations. Still, the subtext of a lot of political rhetoric about Islam is that there’s some characteristic Muslimness that inheres in the body, regardless of heritage. “The whole question is, who exactly are Muslims?” asks Zareena Grewal, a professor of American studies and religious studies at Yale and the author of Islam I…

“Hey You! Anti-Semite!”: A Jewish Krewe does Mardi Gras

By Barbra Barnett

…s of jest. This approach is analogous to that of the traditionally African-American Krewe of Zulu. Scholars of American Jewish humor often draw parallels with traditions of African-American humor, and the comparison between Krewe du Jieux and the Krewe of Zulu is an easy one. Zulu has a longer and deeper history in the city, originating in a social aid and pleasure club, which is a form of social service organization that emerged to serve the need…

It’s Not Just About Ground Zero

By Mark S. Byrnes

…his is the consequence. Once you accept the historically flawed idea that “American” equals “Christian,” you of necessity must see “Muslim” as “anti-American.” Muslims do not accept the fundamental belief of Christianity, that Jesus was the Son of God and savior of the world. Thus, in this closed world view, they are “anti-Christian” and so are also inherently “anti-American.” This is one of the dangers of the increasingly prominent idea that the…

100 Years Later, Just Weeks After OK Bans Critical Race Theory, the Tulsa Race Massacre is Still Marginal History

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…ptember 11th as examples of foreign threats being unsuccessful in breaking American resolve. However it’s far harder for Americans to reckon with the villain within. Whether it’s the Trail of Tears, American slavery, Japanese internment, or the half-century of race riots, these internal tragedies must be reconciled with a rhetoric of American innocence. This brings us to the terms like unity, forgiveness, hope and reconciliation which are frequent…

How New Religions Are Made

By Jacob S. Dorman

…cob, Lynn Hunt, Henry Yu, and others. I wanted to thickly describe African American Judaism from microhistorical, Black Atlantic, and African American Studies perspectives. The question of “authenticity” that had dominated the accounts of so many white Jews was of little interest to me. What had gone missing in the limited literature on the topics was an attempt to tell the story of Black Israelites as an instance of African American history (in t…

A Devil’s Dozen of the Best ‘New Religion Journalism’ Books of the Decade

By Ed Simon

…ngages more of a public audience. Currently the Lilly Endowment Curator of American Religious History at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, Manseau has been writing with curiosity and verve about our spiritual ancestors for two decades now. A founder of Killing the Buddha alongside Sharlet, Manseau is a prodigious, prolific, immaculate prose-stylist who has explored everything from the Victorian combination of technology and occultism (Th…

The Desire to Annihilate Gaza Wasn’t Born on 10/7 — It’s Part of a Long Tradition that Includes 19th Century Travel Writing

By Adam Yaghi

…ainly targeted Catholic and Muslim Palestinians. This view was typical for American and European missionaries as well. In the American Christian imagination, Ottoman “Christianity and Islam were coupled,” Ussama Makdisi argues, “as the two pillars of temporal and spiritual corruption that had to be struck down.” Twain’s comic depictions of a desolate, barren, and neglected Palestine later serve as documentary evidence in both Christian Zionist and…