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Eclipseville, USA: The Birthplace of ‘Little Green Men’ Proudly Hosts The Point of Greatest Eclipse

By Matthew Bowman

…ave Desert in 1949. The Californian George Adamski claimed that in November 1952 a cigar-shaped spacecraft landed near his campsite in southern California. Its occupant, a tall blonde Venusian named Orthon, promised to help Adamski save the human race from self-destruction, and by the mid-1950s Adamski’s books were selling thousands of copies and inspiring conventions across the world. But as the Cold War heated up, Adamski’s optimism seemed incre…

“What Kind of Islam Is That?”: Talking With Refugees From ISIS

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…if they joined the movement as fighters. ISIS, he said, pays their soldiers 1000 dollars a month, whereas the Syrian opposition groups pay only $500. And ISIS does pay in US dollars, interestingly, perhaps from money it receives from illicit oil sales. The Kurd said that all of his Kurdish neighbors in Dierzor were gone. They were told by ISIS they could stay but then killing began. Now all Kurds have either escaped and are refugees, or have been…

Another Book Burner Lusts for Attention

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ear in agreement with what we are doing. I may ask for your church’s name, phone number, and Web site to verify your stand. What I see as the sin at the heart of Grizzard and Jones’ actions—as well as at the heart of anyone who seeks to violently control the free will or belief of others—is lust. These men lust for control; and in their lust they objectify others, people they call “heretics” or “sinners.” Lust, in and of itself, is not a bad thing…

Pope Invites his Flock to Join Facebook: Is the Digital Reformation Here?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…g with regard to religious practice in particular. Both internet and smart phone users were more likely to participate in religious or spiritual groups than were people who do not regularly use digital media. By “participate,” the researchers were referring to physical, geographically located, face-to-face engagement: attending meetings, volunteering, taking leadership roles, and donating money. In all of these categories, participation was higher…

Refusing the Monsters on Maple Street: A First-Person Commentary from the Mass Hysteria at JFK

By Marion Grau

…I shared what I learned with those standing around me or who didn’t have a phone, compared notes with others about what they knew, and tried to calm some who were scared and close to panic. As far as I could tell, the TSA personnel and other security officials seemed know about as much as the passengers about what was happening—all around me, I sensed a complete failure of nerve. A black woman wearing a security vest crouched outside on the tarmac…

“Giving Godhead”: A Bloody Vision of Religion’s Deepest Influence

By Spencer Dew

…armed against. War in the name of faith is a recurring theme, as with cell-phone videos of beheadings. Krieger reads such rage within a dichotomy of “fundamentalist repression” and its opposite, freedom. Alhough she prefers the phrase “over-pervy libertinism” as, for her, the dichotomy is spread wide, with ISIS on one end and the antinomian carnival of de Sade’s vacation home at the other. That’s a freedom worth fighting for, she implies, but it i…

Eid on 9/11 Anniversary?

By Haroon Moghul

…end of a month of fasting.) This year, Eid ul-Fitr may be on September 9th, 10th, or 11th. Strangers in Our Own Lands It was worrying enough to think about how some people might misinterpret such a convergence, and that was before the rise in Islamophobic rhetoric. Every other day, I’m greeted with someone arguing that Muslims are all evil, that we shouldn’t have any more mosques in America, that we are a dastardly fifth column. The assumption her…

Battling for the Soul of the Democratic Party

By Sarah Posner

…ca are (and, moreover, in the wake of Obama’s election, who will get their phone calls returned from the White House) certain names keep cropping up. Pastor Rick Warren, who sees no daylight between his views and James Dobson’s, but who, according to Sullivan’s book, former-DNC-chair Terry McAuliffe blasphemously didn’t know; Jim Wallis, best-selling author and activist who lambasts the religious right for its petty intolerance and the left for “n…

Religion at Decade’s End

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ary discussion of the resurgence of politicized neo-traditional religion is 1979, not 2001. It was in 1979 that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolutionary movement seized power in Iran. It was in 1979 that Jerry Falwell formed the Moral Majority in the United States and began lobbying hard, not just for a fundamentalist return to the political arena, but for the neo-conservative agenda of then–candidate Ronald Reagan. It was in 1979 that John Pau…

Conversion Story #643 (not a real number)

By Amina Wadud

…s hooked. I count my dates of entry from these two points: Thanksgiving day 1972 when I said shahadah, and March 1973, when I was began reading the Qur’an. For some time after that, all I read was Qur’an. Still today if things get freaky I return to just reading the Qur’an. Knowing it was originally in Arabic, I began studying Arabic through the local mosques until I could register for a course at my undergraduate University of Pennsylvania. In fa…