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Are American Christians “Persecuted”?

By Eric C. Miller

…ing that both Dreher and Corey distinguish “real” persecution from its less-than-real varieties. To his credit, Dreher has always balked at claiming membership in a persecuted class, though his concerns about the loss of religious freedom often toe a blurry line. Therein may lie a problem, or at least a source of confusion. While Dreher often explicitly disavows the suggestion that Christians are “persecuted” in America, he also claims that they a…

A collage of a Bible, Valdimir Putin, and the Kremlin and an outline of Russia

Putin’s ‘Year of the Family’ Declaration Blends Russian Nationalism with the Far-Right Rhetoric of the Global Pro-Family Movement

By Irina Smolevskaya

…untry and the world by addressing the nation from a military base in Rostov-on-Don—a southwestern city by the Russia-Ukraine border—against the backdrop of stern-looking soldiers.[2] This year’s change in venue, however, wasn’t the only thing that signaled Russia’s return to the safety of tradition. In a scaled-back speech that lasted only 3 minutes and 44 seconds—his shortest New Year’s Eve address in recent years—Putin declared 2024 the Year of…

Oral Roberts, Pioneering Christian Zionist

By Shalom Goldman

…page of the Palestine Post (the precursor of today’s Jerusalem Post) of May 14, 1948, which reads: “State of Israel Declared.” When Jerry Falwell died in May of 2007, he was eulogized by leaders of the American Jewish community as “a dear great friend of Israel.” Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson made the case for Israel so consistently and unequivocally that today, among the conservative evangelical faithful, it is a ca…

The Protestant Mainline Makes a (Literary) Comeback

By Gary Dorrien

…n I have a stake in both subjects, and a track record of worrying that make-up-your-own-religion yields shallow and self-absorbed spiritualities. But the new books rightly emphasize that liberal Protestantism played a sizable role in creating the spiritual-but-not-religious sensibility that pervades the North American middle class, and they do so with a mostly appreciative attitude. From Shrinking Churches to ‘Cultural Victory’ Intellectual histor…

A Shining City: The Occupy Movement and the American Soul

By Elizabeth Drescher

…gress, economic hope, and nascent global expansionism. Women wore shiny off-the-shoulder dresses and ridiculously high-heeled shoes. They sipped from splits of cheap sparkling wine while their tuxedoed companions swilled the local brew, Budweiser—that, too, a faded American icon, sold off in 2008 to the Belgium-based multinational, InBev. No, of course, these were not the protesters who have begun to appear in more and more American cities, but ke…

Hookers for Jesus: Sex and Salvation on the Strip

By Nicole Greenfield

…d into the industry as a child. The point is not to trivialize prostitution-as-choice, or to ignore the effects of coercion, but rather to point out the realities indicated by the terms ‘slavery’ and ‘trafficking.’ Benjamin Skinner, author of A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face With Modern-Day Slavery, addressed the issue in a 2008 interview with Mother Jones. “For the record, I think prostitution is always degrading and exploitative and it is ofte…

Islamophobia is Real, Mr. Mayor—A New York City Muslim Explains

By Hussein Rashid

…ound on the impact of Islamophobia. I want to offer a reflection of what a New York Muslim sees and hears as Islamophobia becomes so normalized that it becomes an institution. Let’s begin with the double-standard tango. We hear about about an Alabama teen who is reported to have a near-operational plot to attack his school. He is allowed to go back home. A couple in New York, where one partner is a serial offender, is found with explosives in thei…

Tribal Trouble: The Changing Nature of American Jews’ Relationship to Israel and the Question of Jewish Unity

By Shaul Magid

…ess of why they support BDS, the fanatics and fools are simply promoting a new anti-Semitism. Once Jews were singled out and held to a different standard than other peoples. Today, the Jewish State is singled out and held to a difference standard than other countries. [Emphasis added.] This is an interesting claim. The unjustified singling out of Jews which has been emblematic of anti-Semitism historically is now transferred to an entire nation-st…

Recovering From Rejection: The Second Coming of Ted Haggard

By Wendy Norris

…t hear from the TBNs or the Daystars. Or the denominational leaders.” “My therapy for the past two and a half years has been recovering from rejection by the church.” It remains to be seen whether Haggard’s new anti-authority message merged with his patented soft-sell evangelical vibe can spark a rebellion against the old guard. But like Paul, Pastor Ted does not see himself as a quiet exile….

The Faith that Faith Produced

By Haroon Moghul

…r all its ecstasies and disappointments, it is a journey to faith that began with the loss of it. [We are grateful to the author, editors, and publishers of All-American: 45 American Men on Being Muslim for permission to reprint this excerpt. —The Eds.]…