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Sharbat Gula’s Experience Exemplifies the ‘White Savior’ Lens Through Which Most Americans View Afghanistan

By Sara Kamali

…ens that continues to shape the understandings of the histories of Central Asian and Afghanistan, including how narratives of Afghans themselves are told. Orientalism, as defined in cultural critic Edward Said’s 1978 seminal work of the same name, is in part defined as pejorative perceptions of the Orient from a colonialist perspective, which regard people living in the Middle East as well as South, Central, and East Asia as “less than.” Within th…

T-Shirts and Minarets: The Rending of the Social Contract

By Hussein Rashid

…in generalities, if not particularities, in the past. The Muslims of South Asia have to live as a minority, and in an interfaith environment. The Muslims of Indonesia are in an interfaith milieu. The Muslims of Eastern Europe had limitation on their buildings, and the Muslims in the former Soviet Union had limits on their worship. We have survived these issues and have developed, or are developing, a sophisticated theological response to many of t…

Alabama Yoga Debate Focusing on the Wrong Question

By Candy Gunther Brown

…Christian share of the U.S. population dropped from 78% to 71%, while the number of religiously unaffiliated jumped from 16% to 23%. Survey research suggests that the longer one participates in yoga, the more likely one is to pick up new religious ideas or change religions. The legal question is not just whether yoga will change anyone’s religion. The constitutional test is stricter: public schools cannot endorse or discourage religion—whether th…

Who Says The “Partly Jewish” Are Bad For The Jews?

By Susan Katz Miller

…on both Christianity and Buddhism. Peter Phan at Georgetown notes that, in Asia, “multiple religious belonging is a rule rather than an exception, at least on the popular level.” And while she ultimately disapproves of this, Catherine Cornille, at Boston College, writes, “More and more individuals confess to being partly Jewish and partly Buddhist, or partly Christian and partly Hindu, or fully Christian and fully Buddhist.” Some of these theologi…

Embattled Professor Took a Stand for “Human Solidarity,” Versus Entrenched Evangelical Fear

By Ivy George

As an Asian Christian who teaches at a Christian college in Massachusetts and has worn the shalwar kameez as my “duty uniform,” for more than twenty-five years I took bemused note of recent headlines regarding a “hijab-wearing Christian professor.” For centuries men and women have worn variations of this outfit—a long tunic, loose baggy bottoms, and a scarf—all across the region from North Africa to South Asia. I wear it for free movement of my f…

RDPulpit: A Test of Moral Leadership for President Obama at G-20

By Mark S. Hanson

…ers to traffickers so that their younger children can survive. In parts of Asia and Africa, mothers are forced to choose which of their children they will feed and which will go hungry. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization recently reported that the economic crisis will increase the number of children who die before their first birthday by 200,000–400,000 annually. People of faith and conscience must call on the mos…

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Heretic: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Jihadis?

By Haroon Moghul

…organization by the United Arab Emirates.” Exactly. 2) “Muslims … use cell phones and computers without necessarily seeing a conflict between their religious faith and the rationalist, secular mindset that made modern technology possible.” Driving on an interstate highway? You can probably thank the Nazis for that. What about nuclear power, radioactive isotopes, etc.? Guess who got us started there. First man in space? Circumnavigation of the glob…

Can Eurovision’s Rainbow Arch Undermine Ukraine’s Orthodox Value System? This and More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…istorically been a unique beacon of tolerance for LGBT people in Southeast Asia.” But that is changing: But that tolerance has proven fragile in the face of government-fueled animus. Anti-LGBT incidents across Indonesia have significantly increased since January 2016—in synch with broader rising intolerance of religious minorities. Last year’s LGBT crisis started with vitriolic anti-LGBT rhetoric from officials and politicians and included police…

Sin is Not a Crime: A Conversation with Patrick Cheng

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ivine and human—a blend of both. For me, as a queer person of color and an Asian American who is also gay, I often feel like I’m never able to bring the two together, I’m always forced to choose. Will I be Asian American today or gay today? In the LGBT community, even where I feel really safe, I rarely hear anything that affirms my cultural background or the racism of notions of beauty in the community. Singularity is the sin that resonates with m…

What Do ‘The Christians’ Believe? Easter Reflections from a Non-Christian

By Gary Laderman

…usic they create. What do the Christians believe? Same-sex marriage, euthanasia, immigration, race relations… the list of topics that demonstrate the vast and often heavily contested views of Christians goes on and on. Indeed, it’s much easier to talk about how Christians differ than to identify just what they all agree on, and that may be the point. Perhaps all agree about the life and teaching of Jesus? Or that the New Testament is God’s reveale…