Religion Dispatches
…ial to death, and a celebration of possibility in traditions from China to Egypt to Ethiopia. Bread is ritually important in a Judeo-Christian context, but not in Asian religious traditions; and its non-universality, writes Plate, makes bread like religion: “It has some basic ingredients…and serves certain purposes…but when we get down to the nitty-gritty of it, the similarities between traditions can be difficult to sniff out.” Telling the histor…
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…ics at best; the Ottomans dispatched Muhammad Ali, modernizing governor of Egypt, to put down this blasphemous uprising. But the collapse of the Ottomans not soon thereafter—thanks to several inestimably boneheaded decisions—provided the Reformation its second chance. With political instability and instant urbanization, Wahhabism had huge numbers of unmoored young men to target, backed up with the ridiculous resources of the Saudi state, magnified…
Read More…ut of churches and mosques. Secularism is on the way out in Bangladesh. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has expelled a senior member for his plans to run for president. Some Methodist clergy are saying they’ll officiate gay marriages whether the denomination’s leaders like it or not. This comes as the United Methodist Church found Rev. Amy DeLong guilty of marrying a lesbian couple in 2009. Progressive Christians are throwing a camp meeting with…
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…cade conflict, which has cost over 150,000 lives. 4. Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Al-Nahda in Tunisia Claim Victories in post-Arab Spring elections to establish new governments and constitutions. 5. Bahrain Continues to Crack Down on Dissent and peaceful protests, violate human rights, and issue extreme sentences on detainees. 6. Rise of Militants in Mali and Libya reflects the growing network of radical extremism operating in Africa. 7. The US…
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…ocation of Koranic verses. He reports that ISIS supporters “often speak in codes and allusions that sound odd or old-fashioned to non-Muslims, but refer to specific traditions and texts of early Islam,” and that they, “spoke with an academic precision that put me in mind of a good graduate seminar.” These people speak with authority, so they must be authoritative. So the logic goes. In the article, Wood relies on the familiar Protestant notion tha…
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…want to deny Jews the right of self-determination or because they want to promote Palestinians’ right of self-determination. The British historian Arthur Toynbee, himself quite an anti-Semite, once said that history is “just one bloody thing after another.” It seems, from reading books like Weiss’s, that Jewish history is “just one bloody anti-Semitic thing after another.” The truth is, this is not of her own making. A whole school of Jewish hist…
Read More…ght on the Muslim Brotherhood on Saturday, and now Media Matters has a clip of Glenn Beck’s radio show today, in which he throws together Nazis, communists, Islamists, and — naturally — the Muslim Brotherhood. “We have evidence of the uber-left . . . sowing the seeds and helping those in Egypt,” said Beck. “You need to know the connections,” Beck warned. “This is about our survival.” “They’re operating like ACORN,” Beck said of the Muslim Brother…
Read More…; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. Here the narrative frame comes easily. America too is a land of “aliens,” and as God watched over the immigrants who came to its shores, so too those immigrants must offer a hand up to those who have come after them. That’s who we are as Americans – or so the argument ought to run – and that’s what it means to follow the Lord. Speaking this wa…
Read More…versized baseball cap on his head, who says he was watching the news about Egypt, and I had to suppress a desire to leave the restaurant. But, again, surprise. He said, “Did you know they’re shooting rubber bullets at people over there? And you know who made those rubber bullets?” I do, of course, but I don’t say anything. “We did!” he exclaims. He shakes his head. SMH style, although I imagine he has no idea what that means. As I nod in recogniti…
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…es (albeit a white one) and the Hebrews as they dueled with Ramses and the Egyptians. But then something unexpected happened, I converted to rabbinic Judaism under the guidance of an African-American rabbi and within the context of a primarily African-American congregation. Observing the Passover seder communally with my congregation was exciting. As time progressed, however, Passover became further removed from my annual celebration of freedom fr…
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