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Before Black Twitter: How the Early Black Press Shaped American Discourse Around Race and Religion

By Benjamin P. Fagan

…papers themselves, and the people who made them, that inspired me to write a book about the early black press. The Black Newspaper and the Chosen Nation Benjamin P. Fagan University of Georgia Press June 2016 Initially, though, this was going to be a book about the ways in which black newspapers theorized and enacted American national identity. But as I read and reread the pages of Freedom’s Journal, the Colored American, the North Star, the Provi…

Coming Out Twice: Sexuality and Gender in Islam

By Susan Henking

…ality and transgender behavior in Islam. I’m speaking of the United States academy here, but similar things were happening in the global network of university inquiry. Islamic Studies used to happen under the rubric of “Orientalist Studies” which was mainly philological and text-based, and was carefully sealed off from wider currents of cultural criticism. But in the 1980s, scholars began to take Islamic Studies out of this narrow field and merge…

Why The Book of Mormon (the Musical) is Awesomely Lame

By Jared Farmer

The Book of Mormon cleaned up at this year’s Tony Awards, winning nine of the 14 awards it was nominated for, including Best Musical. But tonight’s success is hardly unexpected, capping off, as it does, an extraordinary season of critical adulation. What’s going on? Why has a good-not-great religious satire from the creators of South Park received rapturous praise from the whole canon of media tastemakers? It may be true that The Book of Mormon i…

Jewish Past/Israeli Future: A Review of The Invention of the Jewish People

By Shalom Goldman

…y Shlomo Sand (Verso, 2009) First published in Hebrew as Matai Ve’ekh Humtzaa Ha’am Hayehudi (Resling, 2008) In the preface to this book’s English-language edition, Tel Aviv University historian Shlomo Sand describes the “odd” reception that his book engendered on its publication in Israel: journalists were interested, academics enraged: Representatives of the “authorized” body of historians fell on the book with academic fury, and excitable blogg…

Google’s Benevolent Interfaith Big Tent

By Lucia Hulsether

…this is Yusuf.” Every evening they flew kites together, before stealing jhajariyas from the sweet shop owned by Yusuf’s family. A harsh reality interrupts these wistful recollections: “When partition came, we had to relocate to India overnight. … I miss Yusuf a lot.” The grandfather’s voice breaks, and now we understand. Geopolitical conflict, ongoing over six decades later, tore him away from his beloved friend. Distant memories keep the wound o…

Why We Won’t Let Jonestown (Or 9/11 or Sandy Hook) Die

By Kelsey Osgood

…gedy of Jonestown, a doomed socio-agricultural commune in the jungle of Guyana, begin this way. After all, this was the moment of impact, the day on which nearly 1,000 members of the Peoples Temple died after ingesting a cyanide-laced fruit drink at the order of their leader, Jim Jones. The fatalities weren’t confined to the 1200-acre complex, however; a few miles away, five people, including Congressman Leo Ryan of California and two NBC News emp…

‘Catholic Feminist’ Isn’t an Oxymoron, and Other Tales From a Beleaguered Tradition

By Celia Wexler

…er upbringing. At the same time, I was having my own crisis of faith. The papacy of Pope Benedict XVI in particular was trying. He had such a dour world view. He changed the prayers we say at Mass, and made them less personal and more remote. Even American priests did not like the new translation he approved. Benedict’s Vatican also scolded the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents tens of thousands of U.S. nuns, for its “radi…

From Closeted Evangelical to Unapologetic Atheist: A “Faitheist” Manifesto

By Chris Stedman

…t other people wanted to have. But I didn’t think I would, or could, write a book yet. I sketched out ideas here and there, but one discussion really pushed me to give it a serious try. On my last day as a contract employee at Interfaith Youth Core, I had lunch with the organization’s founder, Eboo Patel. As someone who has played a sizable role in informing my perspective on the urgency of constructive interfaith engagement, I wanted to let him k…

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

By Sarah Posner

…on campus.” Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman of the Reconstructionist congregation Shaarei Shamayim in Madison, Wisconsin, and likewise a member of the JVP rabbinic council, said, “I think for younger Jews, ethnic solidarity doesn’t mean anything to them.” Younger Jews aren’t as likely to believe that Jews share a tribal or ethnic solidarity around Israel as “the people of my generation or older do,” said Zimmerman, who is 40. In one-on-one conversations, s…

More Mixed Signals from Pope Francis; Church of England Wrestles with Rifts; Faith Groups Lobby Pro & Con on Irish Referendum; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…. The website Erasing 76 Crimes published a new map of countries with laws against homosexual activity, which includes four fewer countries than it did at the beginning of last year. Responsible for the decline from 82 to 78 are Mozambique, which dropped its anti-gay law as part of a Penal Code overhaul last year; Palau, which decriminalized homosexuality last year; the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus; and São Tomé and Príncipe, which had actu…