Religion Dispatches
…ut an end to the long 1990s when, as it is nearly inconceivable to imagine today, the biggest problem in our post-Communist, unipolar world seemed to be Monica Lewinsky. I had long planned to become a corporate lawyer. Two years later, I enrolled in law school only to leave within months. There were many reasons why, but among them was this: I could no longer go down the path I’d imagined, a quiet professional life in suburban America. This realiz…
Read More…d only truly became famous in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and is known today as one of the most influential Catholic theologians with regards to evolution in the second half of the 20thcentury. To chart this influence, one need only note Teilhard’s citations by the three most recent Popes. In 2003, Pope Saint John Paul II echoed Teilhard’s vision of a cosmic Eucharist in the encyclical Ecclesia Eucharista: Because even when it is celebrated on…
Read More…ecarity with respect to the law. What is incumbent on religious protesters today is not just to fill up the jails, but to multiply. The Berrigans created their audience by being paid attention. And this is what religious protesters are doing brilliantly today: in protests, online, in their communities, even in their classrooms. The strategies are many, but the goals can only be achieved if attention increases. If movements form, rather than occasi…
Read More…onths on faith is not prudent. He has squandered all the time we give him. Today is prelude to a new tomorrow, not with this administration. Today is always more of the same, days piled on top of days. Shakespeare understood this manic dilemma all too well. Here is Macbeth, another ambitious leader whose overreaching makes him monstrous: Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,/ Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,/ To the last syllable of reco…
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…hms of Egyptian life. We saw this in the protests after the Friday prayers today, in the spontaneous congregational prayers that took place in the heat of demonstrations—and we can see it in the number of Egyptian women who veil (though many don’t and still strongly identify with Islam, whether culturally or religiously, personally or publicly). Egypt’s society is a deeply Muslim one, and the very success of this non-political religious project ha…
Read More…tion to Allah. I also like the way he refers to our Prophet Muhammad. I think, the problem we used to have with being referred to as Mohammedans was only to clarify that we do not worship the Prophet. Because, in a way, what links us to other Muslims today is not just tawhid as much as it is that we follow the way of Muhammad. We are the ummah of Muhammad. According to the Qur’an, he will be a witness for us. And this makes me think, who is this P…
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…ther such biblical warriors as David, Joshua, and Rahab as role models for today’s Christians. Prophet Kris Vallotton of the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding, California, for example, preached to children about, “Your Identity as Sons of God.” He got them to repeat after him in call and response style: “I am amazing. I am God’s greatest creation… I was born to do greater works than Jesus… and I have the mind of Christ. Therefore I…
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…g the 1912 “Men and Religion Forward” movement—a national revival aimed at promoting the kingdom—Hobson shared the stage of the Brooklyn Tabernacle with Booker T. Washington and claimed that African Americans would degenerate into cannibals if they were permitted to drink alcohol. Christians, he felt, needed to lead the world toward sobriety through law, through example, and through education. Hobson’s take on drugs was quite similar. After Prohib…
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…r she described herself as “white.” Though it makes us squirm in our seats today, clearly whiteness meant something different to her than it does to most of us today. Grappling with that reality is one of the challenges of the book. Is there a book out there you wish you had written? Which one? Why? There are hundreds! Let me name two. First’s there’s Jill Lepore’s The Name of War. It’s the book that is the most direct (I hope not derivative) infl…
Read More…tion to Allah. I also like the way he refers to our Prophet Muhammad. I think, the problem we used to have with being referred to as Mohammedans was only to clarify that we do not worship the Prophet. Because, in a way, what links us to other Muslims today is not just tawhid as much as it is that we follow the way of Muhammad. We are the ummah of Muhammad. According to the Qur’an, he will be a witness for us. And this makes me think, who is this P…
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