Religion Dispatches
…k outside the Christian box. When we talk about religious pluralism in the United States, we often mean diverse manifestations of Christianity. Many immigrants, though, are introducing new faith traditions and Asianizing and Latinoizing old ones. They bring very different ideas about what religion is and where to find it. If we care about preserving and deepening religious pluralism in this country, we need to make room for a wider variety of reli…
Read More…d: …there is not a liberal America and a conservative America—there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America—there’s the United States of America. After all, even a commitment to argue with each other carries implicit commitment to the nation and its democratic institutions. Civil religion—and the power of civil religious ritual—goes a long way towards explaining the out…
Read More…time, projects a different posture: actions have consequences. Perhaps the United States, like Earl, must examine its conduct, recognize the web-like nature of human interactions, and acknowledge at least the possibility that the United States as a nation has not lived up to the best of its democratic ideals, has not represented in its internal practices and foreign policies the commitment to freedom that fuels its rhetoric. And, while we’re at it…
Read More…ts, and the state of Arizona contending that the sweat lodge at Angel Resort is a violation of the treaty of 1868. The treaty states in part that: “if bad men among the whites or other people subject to the authority of the United States shall commit any wrong upon the person or the property of the Indians, the United States will (…) proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States.”…
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…effectively sapping national morale by “de-nationalizing” the teaching of United States history, singling out NYU’s Thomas Bender as the “internationalist” villain of the plot. It is certainly true that the people who created last year’s framework made some blunders that gave ammunition to the critics. Eschewing the “great man” theory of history, they neglected to name important figures like Benjamin Franklin and even Martin Luther King, Jr. A…
Read More…in Iraq? KBR is not going to make a damsel in distress movie. The Citizens United case is an important foray into establishing rights and responsibilities for all persons in the United States. Without “persons,” this country would not function. Just make sure you do not ask about immigrants, documented or not, because we are not really sure if they are persons. Oh, and Guantanamo, we just own and control, we have no ability to apply the law there,…
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…the important story of how Indian-born Yogananda travelled in 1920 to the United States and established the Self-Realization Fellowship, a yoga organization that has attracted large numbers of disciples from all over the world to this day. The film serves as a reminder that modern yoga has not always been about the stretching and muscle-building postures meant to function as fitness routines that are so often associated with yoga in the popular i…
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…their less happy circumstances. In Western societies like Britain and the United States, the affluence of the powerful few, uninterested with religion as they happily are, shapes the norms of religious participation for the society as a whole. The effect is to minimize the role of religion as a social balm. That is, the United Kingdom, among the ten least religious nations in Diener’s study, is pretty much all out of opiates. Those who have don’t…
Read More…e pledge “with everyone we meet.” The Rev. Dr. Susan Henry-Crowe, General Secretary of the United Methodist Church Board of Church and Society, said as she signed the pledge outside, “the continued prejudice and discrimination against Muslims in the United States betrays the core values of religious freedom upon which the United States was founded.” “Tolerance is not enough,” she said, but respect for other faiths “is the pillar of democracy.” Thi…
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…Terror, and the Muslim Experience Since 9/11 (1517 Media, 2022), 147. [2] United States v. Zubaydah. Zubaydah was embroiled in a legal battle with the United States government in the Supreme Court over disclosing the details of his torture. [3] Hilal, Innocent Until Proven Muslim, 59. [4] Charlotte Lawrence and Cyrus J. O’Brien,“Federal Militarization of Law Enforcement Must End,” American Civil Liberties Union, May 12, 2021. A provision in a 199…
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