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Is Sam Harris Really a White Supremacist?

By Andrew Aghapour and Michael Schulson

…ialism ends up dividing the world into two parts: educated, liberal, mostly-white Westerners who have an inordinate amount of power; and the mostly non-white rest of the world who are subject to that power. It is in this sense that Harris really does resemble a white supremacist. Harris doesn’t see Muslims as a diverse set of individuals, but as a monolithic Other that is violent, out to get us, and in need of civilizing. Harris would point out th…

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

By Sarah Posner

…leaders formed to fight gay marriage that also aimed to bring more African-American pastors into the fold. The AFA is also a member of the Freedom Federation, a coalition of religious right groups which described its first summit as “multiracial, multiethnic, and multigenerational faith-based and policy organizations and leaders committed to plan, strategize, and mobilize to advance shared core values to preserve freedom and promote justice.” Man…

When Rabbis Seized Control of the Synagogue: The Role of Authority in American Judaism

By Zev Eleff

In this RD10Q, historian Zev Eleff uncovers the little-known story of how American Jews became a clergy-led community. RD: What inspired you to write Who Rules the Synagogue?: Religious Authority and the Formation of American Judaism? Zev Eleff: In 1991, historian Jon Butler called for scholars of American religion to consider how “church authority” worked to shape “lay faith.” A few biographers had heeded Butler’s call, but I felt that there was…

Don’t Ignore the Role of “Christian Values” in Conservative Conspiracy

By Carmen Celestini

…a common lens of “American values” and religion. The Moral Majority of the 1970s and 1980s, also used a cohesive conception of Christian values articulated through political policy, regardless of dogma, to mobilize a political bloc. Leaders of the Moral Majority, such as Tim LaHaye and Pat Robertson, both linked the liberal takeover of the American political system to the Illuminati to create a New World Order, and asked Christian voters to stand…

Before Black Twitter: How the Early Black Press Shaped American Discourse Around Race and Religion

By Benjamin P. Fagan

…h the realization that, if we want to understand nineteenth-century African-American history, literature, politics—and of course religion—we have to consult black newspapers. With that in mind, I hope that readers come away with a desire to know more. My book traces one main thread (black chosenness) through five newspapers, and this approach means that I’ve only scratched the surface of the archive of the early black press. A handful of scholars…

Looking For Answers at the Oscars: A Guide to This Year’s Contenders

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…ing sense of shared and sharing identities, it is also a ritualistic coming-of-age story in which young Zuckerberg becomes a man through rites of passage. These are peculiar rites to be sure, even as they mimic broad structures of separation, transition, and reincorporation found in initiation rites the world over. From Face-to-Face to Interface Reviewing the film in the New York Times, Manohla Dargis tells us, “instead of discovering his authenti…

Could a Real Life Jurassic Park Help with Climate Change?

By Michael Schulson

…one a Mammoth, Shapiro offers an accessible, rigorous, I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-sci-fi guide to the world of de-extinction research. You can read the book as a pop primer on genetics, a field guide to future fauna, or as a roadmap to the next generation of conservation science. But reading about these mammoths and Tasmanian tigers, you start to feel that Shapiro is getting at bigger questions. After all, while the science of de-extinction is hard,…

Israeli Right Demonizes Israeli Left, With American Money

By Diane Winston

…igration, and the environment). Instead they support NIF, which promotes on-the-ground change. But the attack by Im Tirtzu signals an end to business as usual. Following the Money Im Tirtzu calls itself a centrist organization that wants to strengthen political Zionism. But according to an investigative report by Ha’aretz, the movement is funded by right-wing groups and individuals, including John Hagee, the controversial Texas minister whose endo…

American Nuns Under the Vatican Microscope

By Mary E. Hunt

…th Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, the five essays read like a blueprint for a 19th-century way of living. The premise is that a religious community, just as each member of it, is part of a “hierarchically-structured reality” in which obedience to higher authority is the norm. Contra the theologians expressing more egalitarian views of religious life (notably Sandra Schneiders, IHM, Margaret Farley, RSM, and other highly respected scholars), the essa…

The Brutality of the American Eden

By Paul Harvey

…f antebellum camp meetings and the rise of slavery? In some respects, Anglo-Americans fostered an intense religious democracy built on a foundation of republicanism that assumed a close correlation between Protestantism and democracy. This world has been cogently described and celebrated in works such as Nathan Hatch’s The Democratization of American Christianity and Mark Noll’s America’s God. Yet, while white and black evangelicals helped to crea…