Religion Dispatches
…it meant to stand up to the mighty British Empire that occupied his native India, as well as to apartheid in South Africa.“ Clarkson told Religion Dispatches that that chance encounter was his “opening into the world of politics and clashing religious worldviews as I considered conscientious objection to the war in light of my Christian upbringing and Gandhi’s powerful call to conscience.“ Clarkson has written for Salon, Mother Jones, The Nation,…
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…lar, the knowledge of the early Islamic world, especially as it is used to promote proper behavior, remains in the anecdotal, atomized form, and should only be put into narrative history by those qualified to do so, the educated, religious elite. The first attempt to write a full narrative biography of Muhammad was begun toward the end of the first Islamic century and completed shortly after the centenary of Muhammad’s death (632 C.E.). The author…
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…M. Hutchens of the Christian Zionist “Jerusalem Connection,” who has been promoting the piece. Why? Bartholomew: “I can see why Freund would enthuse over this, but it’s less clear why a conservative evangelical like Hutchens would want to promote the idea of 500,000 to 1 million Portuguese and Spaniards embracing a religion other than Christianity. Such are the mysteries of Christian Zionism.” Coral Ridge Ministries Produces Is Jesus God?: Since…
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…States, the permanent members of the UN Security Council—and yes, Iran and India as well—and allow that international conference to impose a solution that provides security and justice to both sides. Only an imposed settlement has the slightest chance of being just to Palestinians—the precondition for a lasting peace, and hence the strategy that those who yearn for a secure Israel must pursue. Just as the international community decided to support…
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…es North latitude that opens across North Africa, through the Middle East, India and closes in Indonesia. The concept originated in 1991 with Argentine evangelist Luis Bush, and was expanded upon by his fellow New Apostolics C. Peter Wagner and George Otis Jr. These zealous dominionists called it the “primary spiritual battleground in the world today…the Church’s final evangelistic frontier.” When the “spiritual warriors” of Servant Group Internat…
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…ely an extreme version of normal American supremacism, one that explicitly promotes and heightens the U.S.’s routine practices of empire. But it matters greatly whether the American empire tries to work cooperatively and respectfully with other nations instead of conspiring mainly to dominate them. In Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and the Middle East as a whole, the legacy of George W. Bush is not very good, and Obama has an overabundance of leftover c…
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…the world’s Muslims live in democracies: Mali, Turkey, Lebanon, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia, among other countries, with 700 million Muslims; more than half the planetary total. Other millions of Muslims live in majority non-Muslim dictatorships, such as Russia and China. But the best proof of Islam’s allergy to liberty is found in democratic Senegal. Independent in 1960, this 90%-Muslim country proceeded to elect a Presi…
Read More…has brought more layoffs and financial turbulence to the middle class, the promoters of positive thinking have increasingly emphasized this negative judgment: to be disappointed, resentful, or downcast is to be a ‘victim’ and a ‘whiner.’” It’s satisfying, in a cranky contrarian way, to watch a writer as smart as Ehrenreich take aim at something as universally revered as dogged optimism. Yet while America’s obsessive positivity might be risible, it…
Read More…es with women-only mosques, including mu’adhan and imamahs, like China and India. Some countries have fewer restrictions, like Indonesia. It is so good to be in places like this because when it is suppose to be for the worship of Allah then, how is that man can get in the way? But we know the drill. Thanks to all who commented on these and other entries, like Houda, and mairedubhtx. Perhaps when Ramadan is over I can start making my reply on the b…
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…convalescence, a dispersed population counting as many people as China or India, made unique by asserted religiosity, new economic success, and heightened political intelligence? Few bother to contemplate. Many perceptions and studies of Islam are paralyzed by teleology. Namely, that there’s one direction to modernity, and it’s Western. The contemporary Muslim is often scrutinized with the same incredulity and dismay that arises when one’s most s…
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