Religion Dispatches
…e of duty for the first time in 33 years. Three others perish with him. An American consulate is destroyed. At the same time, an American flag is torched, while another diplomatic post, an embassy, is stormed in a neighboring Arab Muslim country. Days later, further outbursts against American officials and diplomatic sites occur in two other Arab Muslim countries. The headlines are here stripped of their local names, not to protect the innocent bu…
Read More…t is the principle of the thing with George, and, moreover, being a native American and a veteran of the last war, he has a rather narrow prejudice against being ordered around by guys who talk like they just got off the boat.” Spelvin’s borough of bubbleheads sounds more like Brooklyn than Mayberry. His anxieties, his bigotries—organized labor, immigrants—are those most commonly attendant to urban living. Even his name is a sly joke for working c…
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…hat the psychologist Rick Hanson calls “neurodharma”; and the multitude of businesses who’ve adopted Amazon’s WorkingWell strategy to use yoga, meditation, and mindfulness to enhance the corporate brand and improve productivity. This, we’re assured, is the way, not only to stress-relief, but to happiness—all accomplished through what William Davies calls “the happiness industry.” Not surprisingly, this is something many Americans are eager to hear…
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…ear to a torrent of physical and verbal abuse, the sight of Biden’s Korean-American secret service agent seemed to augur change. Perhaps we might begin to rest secure in our status as “real” Americans, emblematized in a highly visible member of Biden’s security team. Those paying attention, however, know otherwise. https://twitter.com/JovanHPulitzer/status/1351947576950611972 https://twitter.com/DrAfzalNiaz/status/1351747330924556289 https://twitt…
Read More…us is the subtle promise that believing in the American Dream makes you an American. Being American, after all, isn’t an ethnicity. Nor is it a matter of subscribing to a particular creed. It isn’t even a matter of being born in a particular geographical location. No less a “real American” than John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. So what is the American identity? If William Cavanaugh is right, it’s a convenient fiction designed to bind…
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…and Uganda. Critics accused Engle’s event of being the next in a series of American evangelical efforts to persecute homosexuals in Uganda and feared that Sunday’s gathering would help rally attendees behind the proposed legislation. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, introduced last October by parliamentarian David Bahati, had its origins in a March 2009 visit by three anti-gay American evangelists—Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge, and Don Sch…
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…and I’m gonna tell you the future. It’s an American story, and that’s why Americans are gonna love it. People are going to build you up, and, God, are they going to, because when you’re great and new, we love you. Man, we’ll build you up into something that doesn’t even exist. You’re going to change the world. But you know what? Once they’ve built you as high as they possibly can, they’re gonna tear you back down—it’s the most predictable pattern…
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…eep South Center connection was crucial as many of its leaders are African Americans who reside in the New Orleans East neighborhood where the Vietnamese community is found. New Orleans East is a historically and predominantly African-American region—the largest in the city—so the prospects of cooperation between the two communities was vital. “Both communities have been willing to be in a relationship; it’s just that [the] process has needed assi…
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…a great job, a beautiful wife, a fantastic apartment, a solid upper middle class salary, and a glowing reputation as a rising American Muslim leader. After a fundraising dinner, someone called me the Muslim Obama. I countered that Obama was the Muslim Obama. He snorted chai out his nose. On the inside, though, I was dying. I was horribly sick, deeply depressed, my marriage was struggling, and I didn’t even know if I wanted to be Muslim, let alone…
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…luential groups in American political life. Both Catholic and non-Catholic Americans have been vocal supporters of American sisters in light of the Vatican’s assessment. Such support has given rise to the theme that it is American sisters—exemplified by the Nuns on the Bus and known for their work in communities around the country—who hold the grassroots power to bring politicians to task on justice issues from economic inequality to immigration r…
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