Religion Dispatches
…e. I feel an enormous level of personal responsibility to represent Muslim Americans and Islam, and to present them both in an objective and relevant light. This responsibility and focus on the Muslim American facet of my identity has taken priority over other facets of my identity for so long that sometimes I forget that they even exist. I see this in many friends too. General Powell’s simple and honest words that October day took me completely o…
Read More
…irtight claims to divinity, it’s made for some problematic theology in the American context. Simply put, what we witness in American Christianity is a battle over which Christianity represents Christ and his perfection, thus conferring ultimate and total authority upon opposing interpretations of the Christian faith. Perhaps it’s my own Jewish experiences that allow me to favor Jesus’ humanity over Christ’s divinity. My own personal history with J…
Read More
…the country on a five-week pilgrimage across the United States to educate Americans on the AHB and the American evangelicals who helped provoke this witch hunt. Rev. Mark Kiyimba is a Unitarian Minister and founder of the Unitarian Church in Kampala, one of the few churches in Uganda that welcomes LGBT people. During his four-day stop in Boise, Idaho, Kiyimba told RD, “I think [Yiga] was among the people who were outed in the newspaper.” Earlier,…
Read More
…borne that name. Guns have always symbolized “the frontier.” And for vast numbers of Americans, the cultural idea and ideal of the frontier have symbolized what they think their nation is all about. Out on the frontier, the classic story goes, a man simply must have a gun and the freedom to use it. He couldn’t survive without it. He needs it to get food for his family and to defend them in times of danger. But as long as potential enemies out the…
Read More
…to bring change by simply being themselves. Unapologetically.” Russia: Gay American pastor detained and expelled A gay American pastor was detained and expelled from the country on vague charges that he was in the country to perform same-sex marriages. Jim Mucahy is Eastern European coordinator for the LGBT-friendly Metropolitan Community Churches. More from the Associated Press: Mulcahy’s arrest this month in the city of Samara braids together se…
Read More
…ok is devoted to outlining eliminationism in American history, from Native Americans and African Americans, through Chinese and Japanese immigrants and more. He shows how eliminationist rhetoric was often followed by “an actual campaign of violent eliminationism.” This history is presented with a note of urgency, because the eliminationist rhetoric as currently featured by elements of the conservative movement, “is in many ways,” he stresses, “the…
Read More
…ational Conference of Christians and Jews who, concerned about the rise of American nativism and xenophobia during the Depression, sought to foster a more open and inclusive sense of American religious identity. Prominent protestant clergy who were members of the NCCJ’s National Council eschewed efforts to convert Jews—a somewhat radical stance that, along with a determination to change entrenched attitudes towards non-Protestants, alienated many…
Read More
…of politics, but simply to refocus on the much broader question: Why have Americans in general—Muslim-Americans and scholars of Islam aside—remained ignorant for so long of a world religion with such vast social and political relevance in contemporary American life? The answer is not ‘secularism.’ In thinking about that question, I find myself returning to memories of my school days in the 1970s, and to the image of those colorful world maps that…
Read More
…ght The Christian Right, which has been an increasingly powerful factor in American politics for decades, has benefited from a strangely persistent culture of denialism. We needn’t review the number of times that reporters, scholars, and religious leaders declared that the Christian Right was dead, dying, or significantly diminished. That it’s still here and stronger than ever is sufficient reason for all of us to try to get it right. Chief Justic…
Read More
…zona. When the police arrested the shooter, he said: “I’m a patriot and an American. I’m American. I’m a damn American.” Muslim girl power The fictional war between America and “Muslims” (including actual Muslims, those who “look like” Muslims, and those who live close to Muslims, like Iraqi Christians) is perpetuated and extended by the uncritical visuality of the news media. While I believe the war is based on fictional understandings of “Muslim…
Read More