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What’s Islamophobia, and Do I Have It?

By Haroon Moghul

…l of Christianity (read, America) in Mecca. But this picture is all wrong. American culture dominates the world, while the Muslim world struggles to produce anything. Indeed, a visitor to Mecca is undoubtedly struck by the degree of its Americanization—there are Burger Kings, KFC, a Starbucks, a Victoria’s Secret, a Sbarro’s, and even a Paris Hilton store. Third, Gingrich believes Mecca is responsible for Ground Zero. Other Islamophobes have sug…

This Narrative of Death that is So Powerful Among Us

By Daniel Schultz

…itarism, and of course ideology confers an identity: part of what makes us Americans, according to that ideology, is our support for the armed forces, and you’re never more American than those who have fought and died for our way of life. Walter: And what this continual war does is that it continues to produce voters of these people and their families and so on who sustain a political commitment to all that stuff. It seems to me it gets increased…

Why It’s Heresy to Read the Bible Literally: An Interview with John Shelby Spong

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ntroversial. I don’t like being controversial. I get abused a lot in mail, phone calls and that sort of thing. I don’t enjoy that. But, if you are controversial in the public arena, the people who have given up on Christianity say, “My God, there must be something more to this story than I realized.” So, being controversial is my doorway to the generation of my own children. “The primary issue in the Christian church today is to get away from orig…

Departure of the Queen

By Amina Wadud

…tch ride outside the gates of the estate where I can have bars for my cell phone and get in touch with them later today. Before the shaykh arrives, I continue with my Qur’an reading. I don’t use the tiny mp3 player anymore because this last juz’ includes most of the Qur’an that I have memorized myself, and this is more a review than a simple reflective read. Coming to the end of the Qur’an reading is also melancholy, and I forget why I felt I shou…

Mitt, the Marriotts, and Porn

By Joanna Brooks

…ernet technological and capacity innovation before the advent of the smart phone. And if we want to start a serious conversation about where presidential candidates get their money and how ethical that money is, let’s do it. I have a laundry list of labor, environmental, feminist, and human rights issues with multinational corporations I’d love to start working through. But don’t give me a thin, opportunistic connect-the-Mormon-dots story and pr…

“Even the Rich Suffer”: An Interview with Google’s Jolly Good Fellow Chade-Meng Tan

By Max Zahn

…y still doubles as his nickname: Jolly Good Fellow. Over the course of two phone conversations, RD asked Tan—who was, in fact, quite jolly—if mindfulness is a watering-down of Buddhism, whether meditation can truly save the world, and why he specializes in teaching rich people. You’re one of the only prominent advocates of secular mindfulness who is not white. What’s that like? Not only am I one of the only non-white people, but I’m one of the ver…

It’s Barack v. the Bible, Says Barton

By Paul Harvey

…d that the Great Deceiver is among us. David Barton summarizes it most succinctly: “Many of these actions are literally unprecedented—this is the first time they have happened in four centuries of American history. The hostility of President Obama toward Biblical faith and values is without equal from any previous American president.” Roll over, Thomas Jefferson….

Suicide Leads to Calls for Improved Treatment of LGBT Mormons

By Joanna Brooks

…erence talk shaming homosexuality. “I have a brother who said to me on the phone last Christmas, ‘Elder Packer says God does not make gays. This is your choice.’ And then he used some very hurtful language with me,” Jahn relates. “I had to hang up on him. But he feels he has been given permission to speak this way by the prophet.” “Even a simple phrase uttered by a General Authority can give Church members broad permission to look down on, discrim…

Scolding Those Who Choose Pets But No Children Pope Misses the Rainforest for the Trees

By Sarah A. Bowen

…ghlighted the irony of a childless man scolding those without children. My phone went wild with calls from animal lovers, queer friends and childless Catholic couples as well. An estimated 1.1 billion people belong to the Roman Catholic church. But even many of those who aren’t Catholic consider the pope’s words influential or have concerns about how his words can affect cultures, laws, and policies. I understood why they were dismayed. As an inte…

Why I Wrote the Freedom Seder And Why It’s Still Necessary 50 Years After Dr. King’s Assassination

By Arthur Waskow

…tian radical A. J. Muste calling Moses the organizer of “Brickmakers Union Number 1” and a pacifist Russian rabbi named Tamaret—wove them all into a new Telling of the tale of freedom. In that Telling, the then ongoing, even now unfinished, struggle of Black America for freedom was interwoven with the ancient story of the Israelites’ struggle to end their slavery under Pharaoh. Where the old Haggadah had what seemed to me a silly argument about ho…