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No, I Don’t Owe My Yoga Mat to Vivekananda

…ch writes about Vivekananda as though he reflected something mainstream in American culture: “His prescription for life was simple, and perfectly American: ‘work and worship.’” And she claims that Vivekananda’s popularity waned because America’s “baby boomers commandeered the yoga business.” First, Vivekananda was never “popular” in the sense that modern yoga became popularized in the late twentieth century. He certainly gained the attention of a…

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Red Pop and Freedom: How (And How Not) to Celebrate Juneteenth, a New Federal Holiday

…that red-colored food and drinks draws upon the diasporic roots of African-American and American foodways. Enslaved Africans sent to Texas, the westernmost of the former Confederacy and cotton kingdom, were drawn from Yoruba and Kongo people for which red held spiritual meaning of sacrifice, transition, and power. In his insightful New York Times article, “Hot Links and Red Drinks: The Rich Food Tradition of Juneteenth” soul-food expert Adrian Mil…

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Ebola and Us: The American Roots of Liberia’s Trauma

…er polite and academic. The ACS types took up mob violence against African American schools and churches and raided antislavery institutions. In Connecticut they blocked the opening of a black college (the first of its kind) in New Haven, and they persecuted Prudence Crandall’s school for African American girls and women in Canterbury, putting Crandall on trial and physically destroying her school. The Colonization Society’s official name was “The…

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Making Fun of Mormonism

…at this is a natural, and even welcome, vetting process of both Mormons as American and a Mormon as the chief American. (In this vetting process, one belief that America will soon discover—and a belief that the Mormon candidates could make more of—is that the LDS Church counts the Constitution as divinely inspired. Thus the Mormon canon of sacred scriptures includes the central document of America’s political and moral self-construction.) Many Mor…

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Atheist Monument: Proof of Unintelligent Design

…a successful monument makes it hard to imagine its setting without it. The American Atheists monument fails on both counts. When granted the opportunity to memorialize atheism in a public place, American Atheists decided to install a bench. In one sense, this is a clever idea, in that it reflects the utilitarian impulse of American atheism. But a bench is also something that you put your butt on. And this particular bench is an eyesore. About five…

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The War On Terror Is Over

…. So the support for Israel has had a direct effect in increasing the anti-American sentiment in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. Conversely, American support for Palestinian autonomy and a renewed effort by the U.S. to become engaged in the peace process would be seen as an attempt by America to be a problem solver rather than a problem maker in the region. It is disconcerting that during the recent Israeli attacks on Hamas in Gaza there ha…

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Amway, Religious Right Pyramid Scheme, Returns to the Motherland

…rprise, Amway leaders have made billions by selling a phony version of the American Dream, while bilking thousands of ordinary American dreamers out of their hard-earned life savings. The wealth of the founders has supported the nearly 30+ year conservative makeover of American society through millions of dollars in donations to the creation and development of right-wing institutions and causes. ++++++++++ Rethinking Redemption: The Case of Charle…

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Gay-Hating Church Burns “Idols”: A Report

…ued that acts such as the burning of the Qur’an, while legal, provoke anti-American sentiment and endanger American troops, Westboro’s Tim Phelps argues that it’s the invasion of Muslim nations and the killing of countless civilians that has inspired violence by Muslims. The media, he says, ignores these civilian deaths, “as if their lives did not matter at all,” instead calling down wrath on religious believers exercising their rights to free spe…

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Show Me the Way of the Hebrews: The Making of an African American Rabbi

…oom. It quickly grew, its ranks swelling with the large numbers of African Americans then pouring into Philadelphia from the South. In 1951, the group formally declared itself the Bethel Holy Commandment Church. As the name makes obvious, they were not yet a synagogue. Dailey’s daughter, Debra Bowen, became leader of Bethel after her mother’s death in 2001, and she is the official keeper of her legend. Bowen confessed in a rare moment of candor du…

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Sacred&Profane: American Martyrdom

…a democracy: the sacrifice of freedoms in the fight for freedom; economic ruin in the name of ever-expanding military power; the deterioration of governmental checks and balances in the interest of presidential authority. Ironically, the most openly religious American President of all time has inflicted the worst kinds of sacrilege on the body politic, and utterly underestimated the spiritual demands of growing numbers of Americans who are beginni…

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