Religion Dispatches
…ents in North Carolina, I offered a few thoughts on Twitter about just how American Islam is. Islam is as American as basketball. pic.twitter.com/O6IcSkxvy1 — peter manseau (@petermanseau) February 11, 2015 Islam is as American as dancing with dad at your wedding. pic.twitter.com/HZL7fRzWFC — peter manseau (@petermanseau) February 11, 2015 Islam is as American as pride and ambition. pic.twitter.com/ghycpAaTXo — peter manseau (@petermanseau) Februa…
Read More…performed religious and political speech. Just because one doesn’t sound like Mushmouth from Fat Albert or use the imaginary “jive” language from the movie Airplane does not mean that one is not informed by African American linguistic constructions. Maybe if Senator Reid embraced a little more “Negro dialect” like his president, he might not sound so “inartful” when describing the American electorate in the future….
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…calism developed as a giant protest movement against the liberalization of American Protestantism. Evangelical churches flourished as safe harbors for White Americans who wanted to be counted as Christian without engaging the challenges of an ethnoracially diverse society and a scientifically-informed culture that the mainline leadership embraced. Protestants had a choice. Those who chose evangelical churches rejected an easily available alternati…
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…rican Pilgrimage by Varun Soni “Truckin’’” is not just the narrative of an American band on the road, but it is also an aspiration for a uniquely American adventure where the road trip is a pilgrimage and the real journey is one of self-discovery. _____________ Special thanks to Nicholas Meriwether at the Grateful Dead Archive at UC Santa Cruz as well as to photographers Herb Greene and Susana Millman for graciously allowing us access to their wor…
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…cosystem. Intellectuals from right-wing journals like First Things and The American Conservative rub shoulders with journalists from outlets like American Greatness and The Epoch Times; policy analysts from think tanks like the Claremont Institute and the Heritage Foundation; and representatives from organizing outfits like American Moment and Young Republicans chapters. Conservative leaders of Protestant seminaries, Catholic theologians, and Orth…
Read More…e second being their distaste for President Trump. Seventy-five percent of American Jews disapprove of how Trump is doing his job, compared to 54 percent of Americans at large. (Incidentally, as a pollster on the conference call noted, Jared Kushner earned a 12 percent approval rate, which makes you wonder what 12 percent of American Jews are smoking.) The strong disapproval of Trump and his proxies is likely due to the president’s connections to…
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…s, while Juneteenth needs to be a “safe space”? White ethnic festivals and American civil holidays allow for an unconscious honorary ethnic status. It’s possible to see a young Asian American person in a “Kiss Me I’m Irish” t-shirt at a St. Patrick’s Day parade but not at a Juneteenth festival in one that says “Free-ish since 1865.” Again, the issues of race and slavery prevent this level of ethno-racial cosplay that we so frequently witness aroun…
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…d even went so far as to mansplain Catholic social teaching to a nun. Many American Catholics can’t forget either that American Catholic orders of religious investigated for “radical feminist themes” just a few years ago were all women’s orders, nor can we forget that the most prominent American theologians censured by the Vatican have also been women. Yes, those investigations took place under the previous pope, but the root causes behind them—a…
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…and women of color in general are noticeably absent. When the term African American is used to indicate Obama (when people say “African American candidate Obama”), it is as if he is defining the term “African American” as much as it is defining him. In rhetorical terms there is no longer any space for another kind of African American—a woman, for instance. And if Hillary is the “woman candidate” the same rhetorical principle applies; Hillary, with…
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…s is a thorny task. But Khan recognized these complexities, insisting that American Islam should not be treated as a monolith. In her vision, the center will be less a final product, than a process—an ongoing effort to hold the “difficult conversations” that shape American faith. Thrust into the center of a heated debate, supporters of Park51 are coping by placing their efforts in historical context. Every major religion has moved through virulent…
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