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How to Choose a Tour Company for Your Hajj

By Amina Wadud

…ater at the supermarket are required by the Saudi government before the visa application. It was one of the most exciting moments since I connected with the particular tour company to organize my trip for hajj! Why was I so excited? Maybe having a needle or two stuck in the arm made the proposal for this once-in-a-lifetime trip more of a reality. Surely, it could not be anything more sadistic. Actually, I became excited after I got a phone call fr…

Saving Teens from Obama: When Bible Study Goes Wrong

By Vyckie Garrison

I just returned from watching 2016: Obama’s America, arch-conservative Dinesh D’Souza’s election-year documentary (based on his book The Roots of Obama’s Rage) with my 19-year-old daughter, Chassé. As someone who is now a secular progressive single mom of seven kids, five of whom live at home, I wouldn’t normally choose to spend our family’s perpetually-insufficient income to see this Obama-bashing movie, let alone take along one of my kids. But…

Romney Goes to Bat Against Reid in Nevada

By Joanna Brooks

…ieve was designed to overcome concerns among Mormons (who make up 7% of Nevada’s population) about comments by Angle’s pastor deriding the LDS Church as a “kooky” “cult.” More likely, it’s a move by Romney to appear relevant in the context of a Tea Party-infused, mortgage-meltdown-fueled voter backlash in Nevada. Nevada is about as volatile a place as you’ll find in the American West right now. It has the highest rate of mortgage foreclosures, mor…

The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right

By Frederick Clarkson

…as moving through a typical press briefing when she was asked about the escalation of violent rhetoric in public discourse. The California Democrat suddenly became uncharacteristically emotional, requesting that people tone it down, and recalling the 1978 assassination of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk as an outgrowth of the hate-filled discourse of its time. Warning that people might have to “take respons…

The Bible is a Good Book, But God Didn’t Write It

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…the political landscape. __________ RD: One of the things you are fighting against in this book is a literal reading of the Bible. Why do you believe people insist on reading the bible literally and not daring to ask, or even trying to form, the questions? JS: We put an aura around the Bible that makes it very difficult to look at it any other way than as some mystical book that dropped from the sky. In some church processions, they walk in and so…

Leave It to Trump to Split a Catholic-Evangelical Bloc That’s Generations Old

By Neil J. Young

…h John McCain and Mitt Romney both lost among Catholic voters, they still managed to win 45 percent and 48 percent, respectively. Why have Catholic voters rejected Trump? All year Catholic commentators and media outlets have provided their thoughts, but they have largely been overlooked by a mainstream media more fascinated by the story of evangelicals and Trump. As early as August 2015, the independent Catholic news site Crux noted that Trump’s a…

The Sacred and the Dead: It’s (Not) Just a Box of Rain

By Cathleen Falsani

…ation changed from concert to concert, Deadheads found the same spiritual camaraderie and community in whatever parking lot, field, arena, or festival grounds they found themselves in as they followed the band across the country and in some cases around the world. Inside the sound, swaying and dancing and spinning with abandon, many of the Dead’s fans discovered something more transcendent than a blissed-out, good time. They found belonging. Home….

We Can Finally Put the Lie to Trumpism: 5 Myths Debunked By a Biden Victory

By John Stoehr

…ause lots of Republican voters chose her over her opponent, but also voted against Trump. That’s split-ticket voting, which was thought to be extinct. It isn’t. And here we are. (Control of the Senate, by the way, is still up in the air. There are going to be two run-off senate elections in Georgia. The outcome will determine Mitch McConnell’s fate.) 2. Realignment This is the idea that the coalitions constituting each party are changing. That muc…

Nikki Haley’s Slavery Omission Typifies the GOP’s Tragic Pact with White Supremacy

By Annika Brockschmidt

…ning for president and wants to hear what she thinks, Haley offers a word salad: I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. And I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. It was never meant to be all things to all people. Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life. They don’t need to tell you what you can and…

Book Bannings Are Bad Enough, But Where Those Involved Are Considered Demonic, the Stakes Could Get Much Higher

By Frederick Clarkson

…voking biblical warriors such as Joshua, Gideon, David, Jehu, Esther, and Rahab as role models for transforming society’s religious, social and political differences into battlegrounds in an End Times religious war. Some assert that God intends to purge the world of ungodly people and things—probably through his anointed warriors. In this, they are not alone. The religious aspects of the January 6th insurrection, for example, are fair warning. The…