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The Best Books Media of 2008

By Jeff Sharlet

…of Of Body and Brush: Grand Sacrifice as Text/Performance in 18th Century China. Re-Enchantment, Volume 7 of James Elkins’ series called “The Art Seminar” (Routledge; edited with David Morgan) revolves, dizzyingly, around the connections between religion and art. Enemies? Friends? A cadaver replaced by a vampire? As with each series’ volume, the book centers upon a literal seminar conversation among nine participants, in this case on April 17, 20…

Muslim Women “Warriors”

By Frances Kissling

…tial irregular ordination by a male bishop in 2002. While these women (who number about 50 priests and five bishops) have been excommunicated, they are living proof that the institutional church has only the power we give it. They go about the business of ministry and service with skill and good grace. Increasingly, Buddhist women have been seeking full ordination within the various branches of Buddhism. In Korea, Taiwan, and China, Buddhist nuns…

The Bible as Security Blanket, Blindfold, or Weapon

By Amy Benson Brown

…r possibility? Ostriker urges us to entertain—and I mean get out your best china and kill the fatted calf—the possibility that experiencing such love is itself participating in union with God. And what, then, would that require of the faithful on an average Friday night across the land? This blending of erotic and divine love may surprise some readers in what is still called the puritanical culture of America. But such possibilities actually rever…

Purpose Driven Atheism: Secular Maharishis Seeking True Believers

By Frank Schaeffer

…p religious faith. If that’s all it took, the Soviet Union under Stalin or China under Mao would have been such nice places to live, and our largely secularized Ivy League universities would not be filled with backstabbing intellectuals ready to kill each other (metaphorically speaking) over who gets tenure. The Context of the New Atheist Crusade I suspect that the intensity of the New Atheists’ anti-religion crusade has less to do with religion p…

Vivek Ramaswamy Represents the Convergence of White Supremacy and Hindu Supremacy — And He May Well Be Trump’s Running Mate

By Usha Kumar

…eopolitical paradigm that has sought to uphold India as a counterweight to China. (This summer, Modi was given just as warm a welcome by President Biden, whose Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo went out of her way to praise as “unbelievable, visionary.”) But, while Modi represents the high-water mark of Hindu supremacist power in India, the political convergence between the two movements—epitomized by Ramaswamy, but extending well beyond him—sig…

The Risks of Remaining Neutral on Egypt

By Haroon Moghul

…ollective Self-Esteem Unlike Third World countries like Brazil, India, and China, many Muslim-majority societies traded their organic traditions for authoritarian states that have brought little economic benefit or sense of dignity. (At least a Chinese citizen can reconcile an absence of political freedoms with an obvious escape from poverty). Egypt is, in this sense, the most excellent example. Hosni Mubarak has presided over the impoverishment o…

Imagine No Religion: Sustaining Morality Without God

By Konstantin Petrenko

…result in tragedy. This was the case in Stalinist Soviet Union and Maoist China, but the same was true of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Puritan Massachusetts, Catholic Spain, or Christian Rome. In reality, despite all the tragedies that occurred in the Soviet Union, it was a deeply moralistic society where each individual was expected to contribute to the common good and endure sacrifices for the benefit of future generations. The arts, the med…

The Most Religious Race: Islam in Europe

By Haroon Moghul

…s 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 President, Leopold Senghor, who shared the Catholic religion of the country’s former colonizer (France). He was subsequently reelected four times, serving until 1980. How many European countries have had a non-Christian le…

Feared Taliban Leader Killed, But Military Strategy is Not the Answer in Afghanistan

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…estroy. Like the North Vietnamese, many Afghan activists—and an increasing number of Pakistanis—are motivated to fight against the American presence because of their love of freedom. They see the US military, like the Soviet forces before them, as a foreign occupying power. The Taliban, as draconian as they may be, are seen as enemies of the enemy: us. It is the US military presence, paradoxically, that is uniting the Taliban and marshaling wide p…

Religion is Not about Belief: Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God

By Brian McGrath Davis

…ious, Armstrong explains: Religion as defined by the great sages of India, China, and the Middle East was not a notional activity but a practical one; it did not require belief in a set of doctrines but rather hard, disciplined work, without which any religious teaching remained opaque and incredible. The Ascent of Intellectual Orthodoxy For most of Western history, religion has been primarily a matter of orthopraxy, not orthodoxy. In fact, no doc…