Religion Dispatches
…all feel more certain and secure about the world and our place in it. At least the optimist in me hopes that this will be our future. What’s your next book? War. I want to understand the odd attraction between God and war—why we humans love war, why our religious and other culture images from movies to computer games are saturated with images of warfare, and why war always has God on its side. This book will be based on lectures that I gave at Pr…
Read More…record indicates that he is a realist when it comes to peace in the Middle East. While I may not agree with all his policies, he does not appear to be a hyper-partisan regarding Israel. Just as important, Dr. Cole highlights the fact that Rep. Emanuel is not in a policy-making position: he’s an enforcer. He may have the President’s ear, but Middle East policy will be driven by other people. MJ Rosenberg at TPM Café gives more detailed background o…
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…rts failed, but he was followed by thousands of immigrants from the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and South Asia and by African Americans, who converted to varying forms of Islam, some of which, such as the Nation of Islam, were distinctly a product of African American experiences. They built American mosques and Muslim institutions in such diverse places as Brooklyn, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Ross, North Dakota, and Cedar Rapids, Io…
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…od conscience sit idle in the face of anti-Semitism. There is a difference between substantive criticism of Islam and bigotry. Likewise, there is a difference between substantive criticism of Judaism and bigotry. Beck has not only erased that border, he couldn’t find it if you built a wall over it, which he then walked into and banged his head against. Beck claims Islam is uniquely, essentially and perpetually violent. In fact, however, he only de…
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…time when vigilante violence was the means of suppressing free speech. To better understand these fears, it’s important to understand how Bangladesh has come to this point—and why many U.S. lawmakers continue to overlook its growing political and social turmoil. While Bangladesh eventually became its own country following a brief war between India and Pakistan, the remnants of those loyal to West Pakistan and opposed to a secular democratic state…
Read More…hobes, grace the screen repeatedly. Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and founder of Campus Watch, an organization that tracks any academic whose teachings about the Middle East or Islam are deemed critical of American or Israeli policy. Really, if academia ceased to criticize, where would we be? He opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, and once stated that “The increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of Americ…
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…8—almost unnoted in a time of deep economic crisis, violence in the Middle East, and the expectations of a new presidential administration—one of America’s most influential scholars left the scene. Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington, best known for coining the phrase, “the clash of civilizations,” died on Christmas eve at 81 after a long illness. It was easy to be critical of Huntington’s views. The way he carved the global political la…
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…amics of hundreds of everyday shootings in places like the west side of Baltimore and the south side of Chicago? 6. Toilets. “You can’t go in there!” riles up the righteous in Houston. But, on the other hand, hundreds of congregations are doing small group study on what “trans” means, and many of the faithful merely shrug at the idea of queer Scoutmasters, for God’s sake. Sexual difference seems to be much less frightening to ever larger swathes o…
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…, it simply destroyed them. Other scholars have discussed the relationship between timekeeping and power. The most famous of these is the British communist and historian E.P. Thompson, whose 1967 essay, “Time, Work Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,” argued that standard time drove individuals to internalize the regimented principles of the factory. In Thompson’s rendering, a wristwatch isn’t just functional jewelry; it’s a representation of y…
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…decadence. He’s speaking in terms of the obscure history of the Christian East, a history largely unknown in the West. But do not be fooled; what he’s saying is extremely alarming. Patriarch Kirill’s sermon on the Sunday of St. John Climacus does no less than refuse to acknowledge the distinction between Russian and Ukrainian culture and identity, and it denies Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign nation, both historically and in the present….
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