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How to Choose a Tour Company for Your Hajj

By Amina Wadud

…nts than their quota allows. Most Muslim countries have a quota; a limited number of hajjis permitted from that country in any one year. This number is set by hajj authorities in Saudi Arabia, because, in all fairness, there has to be a cap on how many Muslims converge on the place. Right now, it stands at around 3 million! Countries with large populations of Muslims have many more applicants than their allotted number of pilgrims. This means you…

Does Record Number of Religious “Nones” Mean Decline of Religiosity?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…an religiosity—about religion as it is lived in the United States today? A number of what I would see as problems in the Pew report suggest to me that our growing fixation with religion-by-the-numbers may be distracting us from richer, more nuanced understandings of American religious practice. Wanted: A Community that Doesn’t Share My Beliefs and Values Take the demographic category of “Nones” itself. The Pew report notes the difficulty with sur…

Holey Holey Holey: The Problem with a New Study Valuing Religion at $1.2 Trillion Per Year

By Michael Schulson

…f the total revenue of American religious congregations. To get that final number, the Grims took one estimate of the total number of congregations in America (344,894) and multiplied it by another estimate of the average revenue of each ($242,910). Depending on how you look at it, $378 billion is a lot of money, or it’s not very much money at all. It’s more than the net worth of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffet, combined…

A Somewhat Cynical Take On The Future And Soul Of Evangelicalism

By Daniel Schultz

…nd some may even be friendly to some of his policies, said Darrell Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary, who is also helping to organize the event. But organizers said evangelicals need to return their focus to the term’s true definition: a person who believes in the authority of the Bible, salvation through Jesus’ work on the cross, personal conversion and the need for evangelism. I feel for them, truly I do. As mentioned above, they’ve been at th…

Making Fun of Mormonism

By Max Mueller

…epeated chanting of “underwear, planets, tablets,” a glance at recent poll numbers about Mormon electability suggests that rhetoric does in fact hurt. Following on Robert Jeffress’ diatribe at the Values Voters Summit, the recent Pew Forum survey found that the number one word Americans associate with Mormonism is “cult.” The caricaturing of Mormon weirdness, even by public thinkers who should know better, does have consequences. Yet Mormon schola…

Richard Land Steps Down, But Not Out of the Culture Wars

By Aaron Weaver

…the Lone Star state to join the faculty of the Criswell Bible Institute in Dallas, turning down a more lucrative offer to from Jerry Falwell to teach at Liberty College. In 1987, he took a leave of absence from his Criswell post to work as an aide to Governor Bill Clements, the first Republican governor of Texas since Reconstruction. Meanwhile, Land’s friends Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler were executing a plan to take over the Southern…

Give Me That Small Screen Religion

By Diane Winston

…resonated with post 9/11 paranoia. But when Dick Cheney became the series’ number one fan and American soldiers began borrowing from Jack Bauer’s playbook, critics called for an end to confusing fiction with reality. Confronting the backlash, season 7 found Jack in a Senate hearing room trying to justify enhanced interrogation techniques to skeptical politicians. But when terrorists strike the White House, Jack’s do-what-it-takes philosophy is way…

Shariah-Approved Sex Aids, Abstinence-Only Goes to China, and Abercrombie Hijab…

By Michael J. Altman

…ts? I’m not sure. These guys seem to want to talk about it: NFL quarterback Ben Roethlisberger says he turned to the Bible for support and guidance during a tumultuous off-season that included sexual assault allegations and a six-game suspension for this season. Former Dallas Cowboy lineman Duke Preston left football altogether to work in Christian ministry. In baseball, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Matt Garza exchanged theological reflections about God…

Cycling’s Annual Funeral on Wheels

By Barton E. Price

…Week annual event, marked its tenth anniversary. The Ride began in 2003 in Dallas following the death of cyclist Larry Schwartz; it was first organized by his friends, two weeks after his funeral. One thousand cyclists participated. What began as a one-time event turned into an international phenomenon in which millions of cyclists joined at 368 registered events in all 50 states and 26 countries on six continents—a global event. This year I parti…

Who’s ‘Really’ Jewish: the Sefardi Floridian, the Ashkenazi Californian, or the New York Jew By Choice? ‘Authenticity’ is a Trap

By Benjamin Spratt and Joshua Stanton

…Girls, Some Slaves.) Sweltering in the heat of the summer, Hasidic Jews in Dallas dress in the anachronistic and unseasonable clothing of their brethren from the 17th Century Pale of Settlement, even though none of our ancient ancestors in the Second Temple period wore anything of the sort. Centuries of rabbis have attempted to eliminate or alter the Kol Nidrei prayer from Erev Yom Kippur services, only to repeatedly discover that the experience o…