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An American and a Muslim: Reading Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

By Sarah Eltantawi

…the goals of shari’ah. In the end, Rauf argues that there is a version of American Islam that is totally compatible with current understandings of foundational American mythologies, and he had dedicated himself to articulating that vision. Within this scheme, then, to denounce shari’ah would would be to denounce the Constitution. The book is strongest when Rauf movingly conveys the richness and gentility of the Prophet’s example for millions of M…

What Fundamentalist Christian Fiction Can Teach Us About Our American Crisis

By Christopher Douglas

…nd striking some as too political. When my book If God Meant to Interfere: American Literature and the Rise of the Christian Right was reviewed by one conservative Christian English professor, he complained that I “blamed” the Christian Right “(with scant justification) for all manner of America’s ills.” He went on to say that my “literary analysis rests on firmer footing than [my] political commentary.” In other words, stick to literary criticism…

God’s Law is the Only Law: The Genesis of Michele Bachmann

By Sarah Posner

…lf over to tyranny—your health care decisions made by bureaucrats.” “Real” Americans Bachmann’s history of questioning Barack Obama’s American-ness, or of espousing “normal people values,” is rooted in the Reconstructionist conception of “American-ness.” Not just Christian, but their kind of Christian; one who would obey God, exercise “dominion authority,” and, most crucially, is one of their “brethren.” Titus, founder of Bachmann’s law school, ha…

Apocalypse Now and Then: How a Biblical Genre Shapes American Politics

By Christopher Douglas

…the first African-American president—and then the first African- and Asian-American woman Vice President. They have seen the Supreme Court strip school-mandated Bible reading, prayer, and so-called “creation science” from public schools, even as evolution became standard fare. They have watched feminism challenge gender roles, and the Supreme Court legalize abortion and mixed-race marriage and then same-sex marriage. They feared losing their child…

Selling the Idea of a Christian Nation: David Barton’s Alternate Intellectual Universe

By Paul Harvey

…egun reinterpreting America’s founding and expansion as God’s plan for his American nation. Mason Locke Weems, the self-styled “Parson” Weems, constructed his own quasi-WallBuilders outfit in the early nineteenth century. As Rebecca Goetz, a historian at Rice University, has written, Weems had a habit of recreating the colonial and revolutionary American world for his readers, and he did it, I think, to show readers a lost world of religiosity and…

The Women’s March, Anti-Semitism, and ‘The Jewish Farrakhan’

By Shaul Magid

…ave not treated them, related to them, or engaged with them as they expect American Muslims and African Americans to now treat Farrakhan. I think the best example of a “Jewish” Farrakhan is Rabbi Meir Kahane. It is said, in fact, that Kahane was once asked in a radio interview in the 1970s, “What is the difference between you and Farrakhan?” To which Kahane allegedly replied, “The only difference between us is that I am right!” A militant American…

What American Flag-Worship Looks Like to a New Citizen

By Rosalind C. Hughes

…me. In high school, where he and his friends were among the first African Americans to integrate a previously all-white school, the Pledge was recited before football games; then the National Anthem was sung and the band played Dixie. Will and his friends petitioned the administration to tone down the southern jingoism, but were ignored. It was around that time that he became aware that the same flag that he had grown up saluting featured promine…

Islam in Conflict with Democracy? A Response to Stanley Fish

By David True

…conducted peacefully, openly, and with the intent of making our democracy stronger. Our constitutional democracy is not only capable of respecting conscience but of welcoming it into an ongoing conversation about what it means to be an American. American Muslims are just that, American and Muslim, and as both they are well positioned—perhaps uniquely so—to make significant contributions to our democratic society and to the global debate about the…

Denying Darwin: Another Peculiar American Institution

By Lauri Lebo

…. When the traffic finally cleared, I noticed flying side by side were the American and the Confederate flags. Greatest Idea Evah Darwin revealed so much of who we are, even though about half of Americans refuse to accept those roots. He has been demonized by religious fundamentalists, who absurdly have attempted to link him to eugenics and Hitler. In addition to the damage they have inflicted on young minds, I find their notions doubly sad for th…

New Age Tragedy in Sedona: Non-Indians in the Sweat Lodge

By Johnny P. Flynn

…Age religious movement can be traced to events in the early 1970s when the American Indian Movement made headlines across the country with occupations in South Dakota, Arizona, and Wisconsin. Among the participants were many American Indian spiritual leaders who were knowledgeable in the use of the sweat as a healing ritual—and they shared the ceremony with Indians and non-Indian supporters from around the country. Like the dried head of a dandeli…