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After Michael Jerryson (1974-2021) Nobody Will Ever Look at Buddhism the Same Way

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…of other examples of Buddhists acting violently—which is to say acting the way that all people can do. Some of the most virulent are the Buddhist riots against Muslims in Myanmar and Sri Lanka where vitriolic monks have added to the climate of hate and ethnic anger. It was this violent side of Buddhism that both troubled and interested Jerryson. It troubled him since he admired the tradition and cherished its attitudes towards peace and tolerance….

Confront Death by Avoiding Fritos: The Gluten Lie, Fad Diets, & Foodie Faith

By Michael Schulson

…f the academic work I’m interested in right now is on mindfulness, and the way in which mindfulness traditions themselves get perverted when we turn them into ways to lower our blood pressure or reverse aging or burn fat. [For a contrasting view, see this recent RD piece]. What’s yoga good for? What’s mindfulness good for? Well, it’s good for—and then substitute whatever health condition you want to deal with. I just think it’s kind of sad that th…

Rest in Peace, Sam Huntington

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…Though he was a lifelong Democrat and was opposed to the Iraq war, Huntington’s thesis, along with the ideas of Leo Strauss, was part of the intellectual framework of the disastrous foreign policy of George W. Bush. Though his way of thinking about the interaction of religion and politics on a worldwide basis helped to pave the way to our understanding of cultural politics in a globalized, post-secular age, it is a pity that he got so much of it…

‘Pure White’ Examines the White Supremacist Origins of Evangelical Purity Culture

By Emma Cieslik

…ou hope that White women, but also White Christians as a whole, will take away from Pure White at a time when discussion has increasingly been devoted to the way that Whiteness operates within North American Christianity. So, I think for people who are in deconstruction mode [i.e., rethinking and often losing their beliefs], whether identifying as former evangelical or ex-vangelical, I think this is a tool for grounding that reflective work within…

By the Way: McCain v. Huckabee

By Randall Balmer

…in was the Republican nominee, an offer the Clinton campaign should find a way to refuse. So we’re faced with the prospect of McCain pandering after the goodwill of conservatives all the way to the Republican National Convention. And, despite the media-generated myth that McCain is above pandering, he knows very well how to do it. Consider his unflagging support for the war in Iraq, or his embrace of George W. Bush after Bush had savaged him and h…

Savoring the Haterade: Why Jews Love Dara Horn’s ‘People Love Dead Jews’

By Shaul Magid

…stian or Muslim neighbors, but they weren’t hounded either. They weren’t always rich, though some were, but they weren’t always destitute either. In other words, severe cases of antisemitism were periodic, not systemic. Baron’s approach certainly evoked resistance and critique, and the scholarly world has been working through Baron and his critics for decades. But what one sees from Horn and others is that, in the popular imagination at least, it’…

Christian Nationalists Didn’t Seek to Desecrate the Capitol But to Purify It

By Adam Willems

…ians, reflecting Christian values, reflecting that covenant with God—has always been present in some form. It has always informed the political activity of certain sets of Christians, whether it’s the Know Nothing movement in the mid-19th century, or conservative Christian businessmen in the early 20th century, or the Christian Right itself as it came to take shape in the mid-1970s. The thing that connects all of those is a sort of proprietary rel…

In Praise of Failure: Is Defining Religion Such a Good Idea?

By Ivan Strenski

…cases of the “religion-like” or the “religion-in.” I take my lead from the way we already talk and think about the way concepts are extended across borders, however conventional. In a way, philosopher Michel Foucault’s oeuvre stands as monument to the exposure of the “power in” or “power-like. Foucault shows us the way the concept of “power” escapes its once conventional confinement in lofty professional, institutional life of “power politics,” an…

Trans Talmud: Could a 1,500-Year-Old Book Have Any Relevance to The Struggle for Trans Equality and Liberation?

By Shane Burley

…ns. It feels like an attempt to stop the reproduction of transness in some way, to prevent a trans future. And when you think about the ways in which queer and trans communities have often passed down knowledge through generations about how to survive, it’s an attempt to wipe out transness. I think the rabbis aren’t doing that. They’re not always liberatory, and in fact a lot of the texts I look at in the book are deeply problematic. But there’s n…

The Kids are Religious Right: Punk Rock & Pro-Life

By Justin Philpot

…Rock for Choice, a project of the Feminist Majority Foundation. Begun as a way to raise money to support pro-choice campaigns, Rock for Choice put on concerts and released CDs, getting the support of popular bands such as Pearl Jam and Nirvana along the way. Kemper founded Rock for Life to counter this alliance of pro-choice advocates and popular music. Kemper hoped to raise money to help fund crisis pregnancy centers and pro-life organizations. A…