Religion Dispatches
…versized baseball cap on his head, who says he was watching the news about Egypt, and I had to suppress a desire to leave the restaurant. But, again, surprise. He said, “Did you know they’re shooting rubber bullets at people over there? And you know who made those rubber bullets?” I do, of course, but I don’t say anything. “We did!” he exclaims. He shakes his head. SMH style, although I imagine he has no idea what that means. As I nod in recogniti…
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…Qur’an from the 8th century, and a visually striking red velvet tent from Egypt known as the Mahmal. While the portrayal of the history of Hajj balances the spiritual with the material challenges met by the organizers and pilgrims, the same cannot be said for the contemporary accounts of the Hajj. During the launch of the exhibition, Director Neil MacGreggor, speaking of the contemporary pilgrimage, noted flatly that the “Hajj is one of the great…
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…nd that is how Brooks sells himself and his politics—he is a choice engine—promoting choice, heralding the individual, and spreading the gospel far and wide, enabling more decisions to be executed by you by making your life easier—you do not have to read Taylor after all! And here I must offer a requisite disclosure: I have read A Secular Age and I am on record as a critic of Taylor’s framing of modernity. Although I am fearless when I talk trash…
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…n people their own territory after having suffered 400 years of bondage in Egypt. Although that territory was already occupied, God authorized his chosen people to invade, rape, pillage, massacre and even commit genocide against their Baal-worshipping Canaanite neighbors. But rarely do I read any commentary about this narrative of terrorism in the Bible when perusing critical articles on white Christian supremacy. It’s like decrying the increased…
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…eligion. First, people sometimes mean that the US should promote religious freedom, a principle enshrined in US law by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, a seemingly unassailable but in fact intensely problematic legislation that has put the US on record as supporting religious freedom—sometimes. (This meant a good deal in the development of US policy toward Sudan, which IRFA-associated groups named as the Number One violator of reli…
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…y in the Western media for the plight of minority Christian communities in Egypt or Syria today. Or, what of the French mandate that created the modern nation-state of Lebanon largely to protect its Christian population after the fall of the Ottoman Empire? Were the Russian Empire’s campaigns against the Ottomans into Georgia and Armenia similarly devoid of globalizing sympathies with fellow Christians? But, if we insist upon thinking that religio…
Read More…istreat a stranger, nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 22:21)) but in more recent, and less universal, Jewish experiences. Ironically, this choice is at once too particular, and not particular enough. It excludes many Jews, and perhaps deliberately depicts Jewishness as a secular, American immigration narrative that is accessible to non-Jews as well – such as, importantly, readers of this publication. This is g…
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…mph. I think that’s a very positive message and I think it can be preached today. But, you don’t think Jesus saw himself as the sacrifice that makes that happen. No, I don’t. I think Jesus thought that God was going to send a cosmic judge of the earth to overthrow these forces of evil and set up a kingdom. I do think that Jesus thought that he, himself, would be made the king of that kingdom. In other words, he thought he was the future Messiah. H…
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…pparent artifact of a late second-century Christian community somewhere in Egypt, merits further study. These are among the salient facts of the discovery at this point, and scholars quickly began queuing up to weigh in on whether or not the fragment is authentic. But the more popular conversation has swirled around an issue to which King herself made clear the fragment was not able to speak: Was Jesus married? Was his wife the historically confus…
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…rt. Piss Christ, ultimately, has turned into a controversial symbol of the freedom of expression and the ability of art to catalyze significant change in society. It’s of course a bit disingenuous to claim that Piss Christ is an “unwitting lightning rod” in the cultural landscape. Serrano himself has noted that the work is “meant to question the whole notion of what is acceptable and unacceptable,” and, let’s face it, anyone who deliberately subme…
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