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New Book by Olivier Roy Argues that Aggressive Attempts to Christianize the West Actually Hasten Secularism

By Ivan Strenski

…re than they’re doing anything prophetic to revive the sacred in a profane world. In Roy’s words: Seeing the return of Christian cultural symbols to public space as the starting point to win back souls is absurd. Those who promote it care little for the teachings of the Church; their intentions pertain more to folklore, entertainment, spectacle and exploitation. Paradoxically, bringing back Christian symbols actually helps to secularize religion….

Take the Van Gogh Challenge: Doctor Who Part VII

By Gabriel Mckee

…, invisible aliens that wanted to eat his neighbors. This episode was all about perception, and there’s certainly something to be said for James’ “van Gogh Doctor Who challenge.” But there’s also a certain irony in the show’s suggestion that van Gogh’s hallucinations were real. Surely the world caught up to his way of viewing the world as expressed in his art. But the nature in which this episode depicts his mental state could serve to undermine t…

Humanitarian Victims or Christian Martyrs: What’s in a Word?

By Donald Heinz

…mission by a deep Christian faith, were massacred by the Taliban. The New York Times’ front-page caption beneath their pictures read: “Humanitarian Victims of Afghan Violence.” The story began: “Their devotion was perhaps most evident in what they gave up to carry out their mission.” My question: should we not be calling them Christian martyrs? Perhaps the Times’ neutral language was meant to counter the Taliban charge that they were proselytizer…

Too Hot for Shul: Rabbis Seek Healthy Israel Dialogue After Gaza

By Sarah Posner

…art-time rabbi for Congregation Tikkun v’Or, a Reform synagogue in Ithaca, New York, sits on both the JVP Rabbinic Council and the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet. While the emergence of JVP has “widened the discourse of rabbis,” he claims that there remain “many rabbis” who would want to affiliate with JVP but can’t “because there are severe limitations on what you can do as a rabbi and still hold a job.” Progressive Zionist rabbis like Kleinbaum and B…

From Fox News to the Far(ther) Right — Calls for Violence and Retribution Follow Trump Verdict

By Annika Brockschmidt

…ive Republican nominee for president, was convicted on 34 felony counts in New York on Thursday, it was to be expected that the Right would take the news badly. And indeed—the various factions of the US (but also the international) right-wing have been in meltdown mode since the news of the guilty-verdict broke, threatening everything from violent retribution to killings. For those who had, somehow, still hoped that having a convicted felon as a n…

An Open Letter To American Muslims on Same-Sex Marriage

By Reza Aslan and Hasan Minhaj

…tolerate. We have to embrace. We have to fight for the right of others to live their lives as freely as we want to live ours. Bottom line is this: standing up for marginalized communities, even when you disagree with them, is not just the right thing to do, it’s the Muslim thing to do. Remember that whole God is merciful and compassionate thing? That extends to all people, not just those who are straight. Celebrate. Don’t tolerate. Love really do…

The “Southern Cage”: How the Myth of the Redemptive Depression Keeps Blacks at the Margins

By Eric C. Miller

…y of the Great Depression, to minimize its sorrows and to characterize the New Deal as unnecessary government intrusion. This brings us back to the myth of the redemptive Depression: the idea that the Great Depression taught people self-sufficiency and, when that failed, brought communities together to help each other, and that was enough. The problem with the New Deal was not that it did too little—a more common complaint in the 1930s—but that it…

‘New Evangelical’-Progressive Alliance? Not So Fast

By Sarah Posner

…of being ostracized by the still-predominant right wing of the evangelical world, a “new” evangelical may well choose to not speak at all about gay rights, thereby adopting what amounts to an anti-gay position. Lyons is a pillar of the “new” evangelical community, but what mattered more to him was not Giglio’s homophobia, but that “a pastor who once gave a sermon expressing his biblically based belief that homosexuality isn’t condoned does not des…

‘When I Spoke in Tongues’ Points the Way Out of Fundamentalist Christianity

By Andreea Nica

…In leaving, there are social consequences and challenges in navigating the new world—a new meaning system—one that’s quite different from the religious one. Research shows that individuals who leave Christian fundamentalism experience a situational crisis in leaving the religion—a unique meaning-making framework focused on the sacred and divine—and undergo a meaning-making process to achieve a positive resolution in leaving the religion. The meani…

Layoffs on the Religious Right

By Bill Berkowitz

…m God’s ambassador, sent to earth with his full authority,’ he announced.” New York Times editorial, June 27, 2004 To some, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon may be a relic of a bygone era; to others, he’s a brother from another planet. But despite the fact that news about Moon’s various religious/media/business endeavors rarely appears on the radar screens of the nation’s media (both mainstream and alternative), Moon continues to move ahead on a number…