Religion Dispatches
…in Arabic, on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle that then rolled through Samarra, Iraq.) The piece focuses on the high rate of evangelicals in the armed forces, particularly in its chaplaincy and officer corps. Among the feeder groups for the phenomenon is the 15,000-member Officers’ Christian Fellowship, whose executive director described the “global war on terror” as “a spiritual battle of the highest magnitude,” meaning a battle of Jesus’ godly follow…
Read More…course, about much more than AIDS and gay rights. She stood up against the Iraq war, for example. In this she reminded us all of the relation between war and much else we need to fix about the world in which we live. And, of course, Elizabeth Taylor took with good humor the many drag versions of “Liz” that stood up alongside Carol Channing and Ethel Merman and Judy Garland and Liza Minneli — and later Celine Dion and others, in shows across the na…
Read More…ims are demographic majorities—including Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. Comments during this meeting in Cairo showed that there are many in Europe who choose to ignore that—and they do so at their own peril. The second, and perhaps most important problem considering the new openness spreading across the Arab world, is that the West tends to act before it listens. This is a new day, in a new world, and it’s not entirely clear that Wes…
Read More…orcement abuses of students whose differences—anything from protesting the Iraq War, to having a tattoo, to being black—made them vulnerable in a community that placed a high priority on conformity. In 1994, the Student Review also ran a story alleging widespread alcohol use by star basketball, football, tennis, and golf players, with the knowledge and even the protection of University officials. So accustomed were we to the idea that BYU athletes…
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…i ideology—or rather the world view of cosmic war that the jihadi rhetoric promoted—is a different matter. This view of the world as a tangle of sacred warfare has been an exciting and alluring image among a large number of mostly young and largely male Muslims around the world for over a decade. It is an image that was brought to dramatic attention by the September 11, 2001 attacks, and stimulated by the perception that US military actions in Afg…
Read More…nd one whose son served in the US Army during the first days of the war in Iraq, for all the many nights I fell asleep looking at the news hoping not to hear the dreaded “knock on the door” with news of a soldier lost at war, I have mixed feelings about bin Laden’s death. The events of 9/11 influenced my doctoral studies in just war theory. Somehow, then President Bush’s turn from full attention to bin Laden to Saddam Hussein simply did not seem a…
Read More…ves. One blogger even called him prophetic. But Ron Paul has made a career promoting positions that, while internally consistent, sooner or later infuriate those on both the left and the right. Focusing on how he infuriates the right: Paul’s views on foreign policy are consistently non-interventionist. He holds that the Constitution prohibits US involvement anywhere in the world unless America is directly threatened. That goes for Iraq, Afghanista…
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…eetlamp, filled with sadness for those who have died in America, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, and apprehension at the terrorism-related deaths to come. Our work as Americans and Muslims is far from done. The next morning, all I want to do is read news articles and listen to NPR, but the baby is grouchy, refusing food and wanting to be held. The more he grabs at my legs, the more irritated I become. Aggrieved, I take him to the other…
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…g was revenge for 9/11; bin Laden’s killing made the deaths of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan worthwhile; bin Laden’s killing proves torture works. Justice was served, people said, which is just a fancy, tricky, misleading way of saying “we got you back.” But justice and revenge are not the same thing. When I teach in college classrooms about torture, some of my students who support US-sanctioned torture justify their position by insisting that…
Read More…ing threat. While Congress occupies its time trying to legislate defeat in Iraq, we hope you will attend a Pastors’ Policy Briefing that will equip you to walk point in the war of values and ideas. Rediscovering God in America-Austin is intended to remind us that excuses are not the proper strategy when facing evil and confronting enemies. Instead, we must rally godly people and seek God’s provision for the resources, the courage, and the strength…
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