Religion Dispatches
…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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…ligion, Ben Gurion understood that Christian support for Israel—especially American Christian support—was deeply religious in nature. And while he could spar with Israel’s rabbinical authorities, many of whom he had appointed during his long tenure as prime minister, he couldn’t afford to alienate American religious leaders. In 1961 the Israeli government, still led by Ben Gurion, assisted in the organization of the Sixth World Conference of Pente…
Read More…available on the Anti-Defamation League’s website. It is co-signed by the American Islamic Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, the Interfaith Alliance, the Islamic Society of North America, the Hindu American Foundation, Muslim Advocates, National Council of Churches USA, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Sikh Coalition, the Union for Reform Judaism, The United Methodist Ch…
Read More…airwoman of Georgia was engaged in paying reverence to a different type of American idol. In a bizarre moment in the world of mixing religion and politics, Sue Everhart compared Republican presidential candidate John McCain to Jesus and America to God. Addressing McCain’s patriotism and devotion to America even while being tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, Everhart stated, “John McCain is kind of like Jesus Christ on the cross. He never de…
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…to lose if Hindutva harassment of academics continues to flourish on North American soil. The academy needs more critical thought about South Asia, not less. Academic freedom is the very heart of the globally envied North American education system. In actively trying to undermine our educational and research efforts in North America, the Hindu Right impoverishes the study of South Asia, and, moreover, it assaults the justly cherished foundation of…
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…ich to live,” according to Wuthnow. Since the true threat came from within American life itself, it is hardly surprising that the communist threat was seen as much inside as outside the nation: “Americans feared that their fortress could be invaded at any time. They spent increasing amounts on national defense [and] built bomb shelters,” while at the same time they “searched for subversives in their midst.” It could hardly have been otherwise. Whe…
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…
Read More…sed by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President. LBJ’s 1965 War on Poverty was triggered in part by the famous “Moynihan Report” finding that the black out-of-wedlock birthrate had hit 26%; today, the white rate exceeds that, the overall rate is 41%, and over 70% of African-American babies are born to single parent. Um, Hell-to-the-yeah s…
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…re host Matt Walsh tweeted to his 2.5 million followers that “the absolute number one priority of the United States right now should be to protect American lives and avoid getting our nation involved in a disastrous conflict overseas.” North Dakota State Representative Brandon Prichard, a Christian nationalist, echoed Walsh, tweeting that “US tax dollars are better spent at our own border or on combatting addiction than being sent to Israel.” On h…
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…ive coalition of civil society and civil libertarian groups, including the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “…the CVE agenda adopts a particular approach to religion in which the latter is understood to “cause” political outcomes, both good and bad.” There has been less debate on the foreign policy side. According to the State Department’s Sarah B. Sewall, the increased US emphasis on…
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