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Is It the Job of Religion Journalists to Define “Religion”?

By Ann Taves

…t establishes a comprehensive way of life that is held out as the right or best way of life for those who adhere to it.” The key term is “comprehensive.” CrossFit, football, Star Trek, and dieting fads are insufficiently comprehensive to count as religion. Linker, recognizing that his definition would encompass philosophy, distinguishes between them based on the source of their knowledge regarding the best way of life: “religion,” he claims, “is t…

Talmud on Trial: Interfaith Dialogue in the 13th Century

By Michael Schulson

…and its official positions. The Paris trial challenges both. Perhaps it’s best to encounter religions in the real world, informally, with a focus on actual actions, not official words. Pope Benedict XVI worked hard to improve the Church’s interfaith profile, with limited success. While his largely positive attitude toward other religions could not have been more different from that of the 13th century church, Benedict’s basic approach was the sam…

Church Attendance is (Once Again) Correlated with Authoritarianism — So Why Do We Refuse to Acknowledge It?

By Chrissy Stroop

…nald Trump’s politics, and his appeal to White evangelical Christians, are best explained through the lens of authoritarianism. Pundits initially scratched their heads for entirely too long over how evangelicals could purport to follow Jesus and support Trump. The answer was always easy; he promised to do, and then did, what they wanted, which any disaffiliated former Christian school kid or survivor of evangelical homeschooling could have told an…

Evangelical Stephen Baldwin’s Imitatio Christi & “Reality” TV

By Gabriel Mckee

…isms—they dumb us down, they elevate public humiliation—but what I’m really interested in is the way shows like Spike’s Joe Schmo Show or VH1’s I Love Money turn into morality plays about the value of friendship and loyalty. In the best reality shows, the initial rush of schadenfreude is gradually replaced with a genuine affection for the “good guys,” and righteous frustration at the machinations of the villains. I’m also fascinated by the villain…

The Accidental Worshiper: Following the Music

By Tripp Hudgins

…incerity of purpose that cannot be ignored. I would argue that some of the best theology right now is being done by ethnomusicologists. Haynes’ feminist critique of Mars Hill is absolutely inspired and inspiring. Navigating the fine line reflects a certain theological or ethical stance as well. It’s an ambiguous set of practices. One does not simply borrow. One reflects one’s theological or ethical convictions in the process. In Secular Music and…

Run Hajar Run

By Amina Wadud

…preparation for the rigors of the hajj rituals. I’m still researching the best program for me, but it’s been a week with no sugary sweets and no white flour. I’m still working my way to having six small meals a day, right now I’m at about five. I also included two brisk half-hour walks each day, when I can make them. The morning walk is less of a challenge, even when I have my grandson. In fact, especially when I have my grandson, because I push…

Megachurch Pastor: We’re “American Al Qaeda” for Opposing Homosexuality

By Tom Bartlett

…time in our conversation, Chandler lowered his booming voice. The gays are best discussed in hushed tones. Like Chandler, Giglio said homosexuality was not a focus of his ministry. But notice what he didn’t say. He didn’t say that his views had evolved since the 1990s. He didn’t say that he no longer thought gays and lesbians were hell-bound. He didn’t say that the dreaded homosexual agenda had ceased to be a threat to these great United States. H…

Barack Obama: High Priest-in-Chief?

By Matthew Avery Sutton

…American influence in the Middle East has been (and likely remains) in the best interests of the United States, certainly of Israel, and perhaps of the rest of the world. Bin Laden, however, disagrees. Vehemently. Violently. Nevertheless, this does not make the war—formally known as “on terror”—a religious conflict. To say that it is echoes the kinds of over-simplified religious ignorance we came to expect from the bumbling previous administration…

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ramadan

By Haroon Moghul

…the Stockholm summer every summer.) But it’s in the Muslim world that you best get that special starvation feel of the holy month. The world reorients itself, so that people overeat, overpray, and oversleep. But all the same, a practice as fulfilling and renewing as Ramadan inspires its own subculture (if that’s what you call the habits and norms of well over a billion people), so I’ve adapted a specialized Ramadan dictionary first featured on my…

Pamela Geller in Brooklyn: Free Speech, Hate Speech, and the Futility of Arguing with a Bigot

By Haroon Moghul

…on and the Defense of Our Freedoms.” (‘I’m not a scientist, but some of my best friends are canyons.’) You’ll have to RSVP. Stupid’s the coffee, and First Amendment’s the cake. 7:33 Geller can’t get in more than a sentence or two before the students applaud her with deafening conviction. They’ve decided to mock her with faux enthusiasm. At least, it’ll start so. It’ll end just as I predict it will: With Geller running away. 15 years ago, that’s wh…