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State Department Finds Religion, But Whose?

By Melani McAlister

…pment of US policy toward Sudan, which IRFA-associated groups named as the Number One violator of religious freedom for five years in a row, as US policy evolved to support the country’s division into Sudan and South Sudan in 2010. But the law plays virtually no role in US policy toward Saudi Arabia, given that, for 15 years, the president has waived sanctions on the basis of US national security interests.) More recently, people generally mean th…

The Tense History Behind Jimmy Carter’s Liberty U. Commencement Address

By John Fea

…ation or normalizing diplomatic relations with the communist government of China.” Carter then smiled and said, “Those critical letters…ended with the 1980 election which brought my involuntary retirement from the White House. After that I didn’t get very many letters from Liberty.” In the end, Carter came to this bastion of the Christian Right because he is a grace-filled Christian. In a Liberty press release, Falwell Jr. explained why he invited…

2011’s Best Books—
Or Just a Great Reading List

By Haroon Moghul

…rison industry that sees America incarcerate more people, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of its population, than almost any other country in the world, including China. Chew on that for a few minutes. But for all his willingness to think outside the box, I found a truly disheartening passage in his conclusion. After spending pages describing the cruelty of our justice system, he makes the offhand point that at least what he is sugges…

Ainslie Embree’s Gift to Religious Studies

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…onflict: Religion and Nationalism in India (University of California Press, 1990), Embree showed how secular and religious visions of the Indian nation were fundamentally in competition, though he understood that the religious versions had their own political motivations. In a separate essay, he ruminated over the partition of India in 1948 and the creation of Pakistan. Though ostensibly an attempt to keep Muslim and Hindu communities separate, Em…

How Robert Bellah (1927-2013) Changed the Study of Religion

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…applied to different cultures around the world. The essays on religion in China, Japan, Islamic societies, and the United States published in 1970 in his book of essays, Beyond Belief, illustrates that point. In his 1967 essay in Daedalus on “Civil Religion,” Bellah founded a whole new enterprise for religious studies scholars: probing the political significance of religious ideas and the religious significance of political ones. In this case it…

Hajj Journal: Tawaf: How I Fell in Love…

By Amina Wadud

…rive in Makkah as close to the new moon as possible for the Zhul-Hijjah, or 12th lunar month. This is approximately one week before the hajj begins on the 8th day. When you first see the Ka’abah, you are supposed to say certain du’a (including asking for ANYTHING you want), and then make two rakaats. Most people are so overwhelmed at the sight of it, they simply dissolve into tears. For Muslims, this is the psychological center. The heart of our d…

A King for Jesus: What the Religious Right Sees in Trump

By Roger O. Friedland

…because of our political submissiveness, not because of the product cycle. China and Mexico have taken us to the cleaners. Trump is no market liberal: The free market is anything but. So he would naturally use the state’s power to countermand the property rights of corporations who export their jobs and plants abroad. He attributes his own market failures to his lack of power. He has only run one public company, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts in…

Make no Mistake, if There’s a War Between Russia and Ukraine, it Will be a Religious War

By Katherine Kelaidis

…chate in Africa—essentially a colonial outpost—which is expected to include 102 clerics in eight countries. So what’s the big deal? The big deal is that all of the clerics newly under the patronage of Moscow were formerly members of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, and the Moscow Synod is explicitly tying its decision to create the new exarchate and welcome these clergy to the Patriarch of Alexandria’s decision to acknowledge the ind…

Billy Graham, Most Famous Religious Figure of 20th C, Dies at 99

By Randall Balmer

…the “great men” he had known. Aside from his strident anti-Communism in the 1940s and 1950s, Graham’s own political leanings were never well defined—or at least they were never publicly articulated. He generally shied away from religiously inspired programs of social reform, insisting that the only way to change society is to “change men’s hearts.” That statement comported with his premillennialism, the belief that Jesus will return at any time—be…

GOP Candidate: Obama is Taking Your Freedom to Find the Lord

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…e” to be Christian. In our modern day, Christians even thrive in Communist China where they can actually be persecuted for being Christians. So, his argument is ridiculous on its face—no one can take away a “choice” for Christ. What I find great about America is that we will always have the opportunity to choose whatever religion we wish to follow—since such a decision is between you and your god or gods. No one can stop you from making that choic…