Religion Dispatches
Sparked by a Richard Dawkins tweet, in which he drew a parallel between Islamists and (yawn) Nazis, Nathan Lean recently suggested on Salon.com that the most famous representatives of the new atheism “flirt with” Islamophobia [echoing Chris Stedman’s prescient warning to fellow atheists on RD this past August]. As the article explains, Dawkins, Hitchens, and their ilk have had a gleeful decade of “intellectual triumphalism” directed against the r…
Read MoreMuch to the dismay of conservative political pundits, bloggers, and the like, Google’s “doodle” for its homepage on March 31 in honor of Cesar Chávez’s 86th birthday also happened to appear on Easter Sunday, one of the most sacred days for Christians the world over. Responses ranged from mild disappointment to vows to replace Google with search engines like Bing (which decorated its homepage with Easter eggs). But what underlies nearly all the co…
Read MoreIn recent months, many observers have wondered (some not so silently) whether the religious right might be dying. The movement’s putative founder, Rev. Jerry Falwell, passed away last year, and several other original movement leaders, especially Rev. Pat Robertson, are far less politically relevant today than they were in their heyday. We now hear comparatively little about religious right interest groups, and the once-powerful Christian Coalitio…
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