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Obama Foes Misrepresent Islam with “Apostate” Tactic

By Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im

…in the pre-colonial era, as if they are the legal system of nation states today. Apostasy is only a crime in the penal codes of four or five out of the 40 Muslim-majority countries today. Dr. Luttwak claims that “another provision of Muslim law… prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing.” This claim implies that there is something called “Muslim law,” which is either the…

Christianity Today counsels “patience” on Uganda’s anti-gay law

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

Christianity Today has put its two cents in on the “Kill the Gays” bill in Uganda, telling gays and lesbians to unwad their knickers over the law and instead exercise “patience as Ugandan leaders sort out among themselves the best way to preserve their culture’s sexual mores.” Instead of strongly condemning this legislation, which President Barack Obama has called “odious,” CT tells us we need to understand the culture and give the Ugandans a fai…

Sex and Civilization: The Body as Battleground

By Jay Michaelson

…asure and marks the subservience of man to divine (or human) authority. We today are Abraham’s heirs, and re-enactors, of countless acts of circumscription. Today, as 2500 years ago, our own bodies are the instruments of authority, power, and control. Religious and political institutions of authority, usually backed up by violence, inscribe themselves on our genitals, our hairstyles, the ways in which we express our sexuality. We learn how to obey…

Putting the “Protest” Back in Protestant: Reclaiming the Spirit of Resistance

By Peter Laarman

…ord to resist government direction in matters of faith and public justice, today’s faux Protestants (DC division) appear only too happy to serve as the king’s errand boys and check their prophetic critique at the door. I am calling the self-willed domestication of what should be a fearless Protestant voice “Areopagitica in reverse” because Milton, in his 1644 anti-censorship polemic, was insisting on the necessity of the free interplay of ideas fo…

Gun Ownership as Sin—A Strategic, Secular Proposal for Gun Reform

By Ira Chernus

…espond to God’s love by loving our neighbors. The same call is still heard today in the push to control guns. But the power of religion to shape social values and government legislation was already waning even at the height of the Progressive era. The Social Gospel movement back then, despite its undeniable influence, was generally an adjunct to successful progressive programs, not their spearhead (with the notable exceptions of alcohol prohibitio…

Did Scientologists Take Over the Today Show?

By Becky Garrison

…em to at least separate the fluff from the facts. On Wednesday morning The Today Show ran a piece celebrating the work of Scientology’s Volunteer Ministers without addressing the concerns raised this organization’s “services,” which are designed by science fiction writer, L. Ron Hubbard. This story mentions that these counselors are providing “touch assists” without bothering to bring in a representative from the National Mental Health Association…

I Want a Perfect Body

By Jeremy Biles

…gelical devotional diet movements that first cropped up in the late 1950s. Promoting the belief that inner goodness was apparent in one’s outer aspect, this vein of devotion was built on the doctrine that “fat was sin.” A thin, firm, beautiful body, it was believed, was the visible reflection of goodness and godliness. The idea that “fit bodies… signify fitter souls” permeates the American consciousness with anxiety about the body while shaping b…

Future of Liberal Religion: A Counterculture Blooms?

By Jill K. Gill

…ideas proclaimed by the most visible of the evangelicals in American life today.” Harry Emerson Fosdick’s noted 1922 sermon “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” could serve as a potential model, Hollinger offers, suggesting that “the salient solidarity today may not be with the community of faith but among those who accept Enlightenment-generated standards for cognitive plausibility.” This is attractive advice for Protestants who dream of a revitaliz…

“Stress Test” a Con: Obama Still Coddling Banks

By Peter Laarman

…to a cage if not shot dead outright. Johnson pointed out this morning that today’s news non-event even has a kind of Goldilocks character that the big media are bound to lap right up. It will turn out that the $1 trillion in TARP is an amount “just right” to cover the self-declared capital needs of the big banks. Bernanke said this morning that he’s absolutely sure that this afternoon’s announcement will “inspire confidence.” Quel coincidence! The…

Tattoos, Cremation, Personal Spirituality: The Jewish World in Transformation

By Dana Evan Kaplan

…bsorb ancient wisdom which, with a little imagination, is still applicable today. But some things the past cannot teach us and our task is to respond to the challenges of today and tomorrow. Reb Zalman is totally confident that we will be able to do so. He closes his afterword by saying, “And so when I’m saying I’m optimistic, I’m optimistic that something will emerge, you know. I’m as optimistic as I am when I see a newborn baby.” I wish I coul…