Religion Dispatches
…n Attempt by Taliban. 10. Brazen Taliban attacks in Afghanistan/Pakistan cause over two thousand deaths—but they still participate in negotiation talks in France and Qatar. 11. Boko Haram, Radical Islamists in Nigeria, Increase Attacks against Christian churches, moderate Muslim mosques, and Nigerian security institutions setting off ethnic and religious violence. 12. Sectarian Violence in Burma between Rohingya Muslim minority and ethnic Rakhine…
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…ported along a major ancient near-eastern thoroughfare from Mesopotamia to Egypt. The one mention in the New Testament can be found in that most cryptic of texts, Revelation, and that one reference is none too clear, only suggesting a gathering of kings for the purposes of battle “at the place that in Hebrew is called Harmagedon” (Rev 16:16, NRSV). But Americans love apocalypses, so in the hands of late nineteenth and early twentieth century pre-m…
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…n Washington D.C. announced plans to launch a major movement modeled after Egypt’s Tahrir Square uprising. The movement was scheduled to begin in October with an occupation of Freedom Plaza in central Washington. The organizers included Margaret Flowers, a pediatrician who has led the campaign for single-payer health care, and Kevin Zeese, a social activist. I had signed on to this and went to D.C. for the launch events in early October, along wit…
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…a women’s holiday, to pray together. When they were met repeatedly with abuse and the police refused to help, they petitioned the High Court as the group Women of the Wall. In the intervening years, Women of the Wall have twice petitioned the High Court, and the Court has ruled that the government must establish a committee to resolve the issue by offering a solution that allows the women to pray at the Wall. Since 1997, the women have been allow…
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…o the rest of us) will have a good deal to say about “ethnic” violence because of the Chechen background of the young suspects. Mind-Purge Second, because the non-Fox media presume that religion, in the abstract, is good, they will surely never even think of the relation of Islam to the Boston Marathon attacks. Mainstream outlets sanitize their language—in order to distinguish themselves from Fox et al—but they also thoroughly bleach out their thi…
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…am—reliance and trust in God—and explains why people take risks people in the West would never even contemplate. Because, after all, you’re only going to get flattened by an accelerating Porsche Panamera, the family car of choice here, if God wants you to, and what better way to meet your maker than relaxed after some Lipton Yellow Label? But because I couldn’t snap a picture of this mythic hero, I offer you the next best thing: Something that l…
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…nized around it, but it is almost invisible outside the academic world because the text is nearly 800 pages of dense, jargon-filled prose.” Rest assured, we do not need to read Taylor for ourselves because David Brooks can be trusted. His ongoing effort to distill for us the density of jargon is a choice well-honed. The result: a column that we have chosen to read (again, wisely) and, moreover, a readerly choice that becomes a sign to others and o…
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…ance” and interfaith cooperation. In part, IGE can do things like this because, unlike the many right-wing think tanks focused on “Islam,” it is genuinely interested in dialogue. But what kind of dialogue? Although IGE sounds like a typical (read presumably secular) inside-the-Beltway think tank, it isn’t. The organization was founded by Chris’s father Robert A. Seiple, who first made his name as the head of the evangelical international aid and d…
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…t is a form of national abnormality. Israel, and only Israel, can do x because of its history of persecution. This form of Zionism is little better than anti-semitism. In fact, it is inversely implying the same thing. I do not know whether Rohani is sincere, as peace loving people hope that he is. We should, as Reagan correctly said about the Soviet Union, “trust and verify” and not, as Netanyahu said “distrust, dismantle and verify.” What is wron…
Read More…ut of churches and mosques. Secularism is on the way out in Bangladesh. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has expelled a senior member for his plans to run for president. Some Methodist clergy are saying they’ll officiate gay marriages whether the denomination’s leaders like it or not. This comes as the United Methodist Church found Rev. Amy DeLong guilty of marrying a lesbian couple in 2009. Progressive Christians are throwing a camp meeting with…
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