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Israel Under Bush: The Islamophobia Years

By Joel Schalit

…rd) completely misrepresented Khalidi’s politics, contending that this half-Lebanese, half-Palestinian, US-born historian was in fact a Palestinian radical and former spokesperson for the PLO. For anyone familiar with Khalidi’s work, there was no doubt that he was a critic of America’s policies in the Middle East, especially its support of Israel. But to extrapolate that Khalidi was somehow a subversive, on par with radical Islamists, was even mor…

Masculine Christianity, Praying Ballplayers, & Satanist Discrimination

By Michael J. Altman

…ake in the continued violence of the Afghanistan war. Two new books on anti-Semitism prove that it is still a relevant topic. And philo-Semitism is still around as well. Fundamentalists and other conservative Christians unite with conservative Jews in Zionist hopes and millennial visions. On the other end of the Jewish specturum, another bridge builder, Rabbi Peter Knobel, retires at age 67. Quince Mountain details sexuality, desire, and church ca…

Religion and Resistance at the New National Museum of African American History and Culture

By Anita Little

…ual arts gallery. It’s a beautiful illustration by the very famous and well-collected African American artist Charles White called “Move On Up a Little Higher” [see above]. Taken by Rev. Henry Clay Anderson at a church congregation in Greenville, Mississippi, Collection of the Smithsonian It appears that there has never been a research center on this scale devoted to black religious life. Why do you think it’s happening now? I believe it’s the com…

An End to the “Gentleman’s Agreement” on Israel?

By Jay Michaelson

…ace proposal, including the Arab Peace Initiative, includes a return to the 1947 partition plan. The notion that western Jerusalem is really disputed territory is pure diplomatic fantasy. A few weeks back, the Supreme Court weighed in. In an 8-1 decision, the court said that the law must be enforced, that doing so was not a political decision under the discretion of the executive branch, and that, essentially, the gentleman’s agreement is void. Th…

The Myth of ‘Voodoo’: A Caribbean American Response to Representations of Haiti

By Dianne M. Stewart

…roblem of Haiti.’ As Robertson narrates it, in his latest fiction-disguised-as-revelation, “something happened a long time ago in Haiti,” and that something was Haiti’s vodou heritage. The earthquake, an unfortunate turn of events in Haiti’s unnatural history, presents Robertson, and the Christian cohorts supporting his ministry, yet another platform to characterize Haiti as a reprobate nation destined to suffer one disaster after another under th…

The Only Thing Evangelicals Will Never Forgive Is Not Hating the “Other”

By Frank Schaeffer

…was lived out in a community. Salvation was a path toward God, not a you’re-in-or-out event, as in “At two thirty last Wednesday I accepted Jesus.” Just as Hillary Clinton said about child rearing, the process of redemption took a village. Pastors were part of that “village” tradition and were inducted into existing communities of faith. They were not self-made and reinventing the faith according to whim. The heart of worship was sacramental conti…

Pigging Out: What ‘Radically Unkosher’ Jewish Foodies Like Michael Pollan Are Missing

By Jonathan Schorsch

…d, Judaism, Laws Throughout his writing Pollan insists, correctly, that non-Western and non-industrialized cultures bear great wisdom about community and healthy eating, though this conviction does not, evidently, extend to Judaism. The norms of other cultures aim to (or successfully do) protect health, while the laws of kashrut are, says Pollan, “probably designed more to enforce group identity than to protect health.” Pollan makes his lack of re…

“Religious Freedom” and the Conservative Quest for Absolute Truth

By Ira Chernus

…and the morning-after pill—for conservatives to tar Obama as the commander-in-chief of a “war on religion.” “The right has picked a fight on this issue,” says Maddow, “because religiosity is a convenient partisan cudgel to use against Democrats in an election year.” Okay, Rachel. But what makes religiosity convenient? If it’s all about politics, “convenient” means effective in moving voters from one column to the other. So beneath all…

Republicans To Get Free “Spiritual, Historical” Trips to Israel

By Sarah Posner

…d a free trip to Israel, thanks to the American Family Association and the American Renewal Project: The 168 members of the committee, three from each state, district, and territory, have been invited to visit the country from Jan. 31–Feb.8, 2015, paid for by conservative political operative David Lane’s American Renewal Project and the American Family Association. The meeting follows January’s winter meeting of the party committee in Coronado, Ca…

“I Think the White Evangelical Church is Dead”: Dr. Russell Jeung on ‘Guilt’ vs. ‘Shame’ and Decolonizing Asian-American Christianity

By Deborah Jian Lee

…lot of second-generation Asian Americans are doing. For example, Vietnamese-Americans who are Catholics are also developing home shrines, a practice of honoring ancestors. Their approach revealed how they were doing it in a hybridized way—embracing both the traditional and the personally meaningful. On their shrine they’d place something traditional, like just a photo and maybe fruits, but they would also make a montage of pictures and then orname…