Religion Dispatches
…nd makes profits off of returns on investment, interest, and so on—usury. Western civilization’s original usury laws are found in the Bible. The Torah contains several prohibitions against lending money at interest, and the New Testament several condemnations of it. Deuteronomy 23:20-21 is representative, here in the King James (why not): “Thou shalt not lend upon interest to thy brother: interest of money, interest of victuals, interest of any t…
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…impact on contemporary Islam, far out of proportion to awareness of him in Western societies, this book is a tremendous introduction to a very fertile although often ignored topic. To give you a sense of Iqbal’s reach, he is considered the intellectual and spiritual founder of Pakistan, he is widely studied in Iran, his poetry is loved and quoted in Turkey and Tajikistan, recognized by many Arabs, and the author of this work is himself from Senega…
Read More…an academic medical center, described how a Catholic-owned hospital in her western urban area asked her to accept a patient who was already septic. When she received the request, she recommended that the physician from the Catholic-owned hospital perform a uterine aspiration there and not further risk the health of the woman by delaying her care with the transport. “Because the fetus was still alive, they wouldn’t intervene. And she was hemorrhagi…
Read More…therine was loaded with musings on apophatic theology (its very history in western theological thought, on Nicholas of Cusa as an apophatic theologian, on quantum physics as a kind of “unsaying” of the laws of classical physics, on apophatic theology and deconstruction) but to include these reflections would have made the interview much longer. So I made some (perhaps lamentable) editing choices. It’s a difficult game—serving up these rich, dense…
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…ell as publishing all the rites for the ordination of women deacons in the Western Church. So the projects are directly linked. This second book focuses on women deacons while the earlier book also looked at evidence for women bishops and women priests. The second part of your question raises interesting historical questions. Up until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, ordination was not tied to the priesthood. Ordination signified the selectio…
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…for readers? That religion is both central to and often invisible in many Western bodily projects. It shapes the moral norms and values which fuel projects of bodily change and its practices provide disciplines that are believed to effect change. And, as in many other areas of life and culture, religious hopes and physical realities are often in a complicated dance. Or, in the words of historian Hillel Schwartz, “In faith (as in dieting), no disa…
Read More…under of the American Family Association, says, “The homosexual movement’s promotion of same-sex marriage undermines the God-ordained institution of marriage and family which is the foundation of all societies.” And Beverly LaHaye, the founder of Concerned Women for America who also endorsed Gingrich, once said, “Politicians who do not use the Bible to guide their public and private lives do not belong in office.” Well, that settles it, doesn’t it…
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…out the disparaging book The Satanic Verses, the difference being that the Western author (Salman Rushdie) is still alive under the protection of the British police while the Azerbaijani author in Baku was stabbed and died five days ago in hospital. You are undoubtedly aware that these two individuals are not the only ones who have insulted the Prophet (Peace be upon him), Quran and Islam. There are some who on a daily basis and in different langu…
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…to Hirsi Ali, Boko Haram claims that nomenclature (meaning in Hausa that ‘Western education is forbidden’) for itself, when in fact the name was imposed on them by unfriendly Nigerian media. They call themselves in elaborate Arabic, The Community of Sunni People for the Propagation [of the Faith] and for the Struggle (Jihad). Boko Haram adherents bear a strong family resemblance to the more radical elements in the Nigerian Muslim Students’ Societ…
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…first question, but part of the explanation, obviously, is the meddling of Western powers to whom a genuine commitment to Arab rights and freedoms is not a priority. I feel even less qualified to make predictions about the Arab Spring, but the fact that the push for change is coming from within rather than being imposed from without seems like grounds for cautious optimism. I hope it pans out, and I also hope that whomever we elect in November doe…
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