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No, Sunni and Shia Muslims Have Not Been Fighting Forever

By Haroon Moghul

…even mandatory. Unless you’re on the receiving end of that priority. Huge numbers of Americans kill each other, every year, for all kinds of reasons. We continue to use the power of the state to marginalize, and practically execute, large numbers of unarmed black men, women and even children, and deny even the possibility of legal redress to those left behind. Speaking of undying hatreds, when do you think American racism will end? We have gone t…

“Religion, O Diabolic”: Lamenting Religious Violence, Then and Now

By Ed Simon

…ble of when they are told they are killing in the name of God. The precise number of casualties is hard to estimate (and largely depends on the ideological position of the source you are consulting). The numbers have been estimated between 2,000 to close to 70,000. One fact that is known for certain though—in Arles, downriver from Lyon, it was impossible to drink the water from the Rhone for three months, since it was so polluted with the remains…

Robert Bellah’s Powerful Legacy: A Mixed Blessing for Religious Studies?

By Ivan Strenski

…led “civil religion.” While Bellah relied, in this influential essay, on a European intellectual backdrop, from Rousseau’s coinage of “civil religion” to Durkheim’s speculations on a “lay” religion of the future, he made a point of situating his notion of civil religion in a specifically American context. Bellah’s American civil religion appealed explicitly to Biblical archetypes like “God,” “Election,” “Providence” and such. They fit comfortably…

Christianity Today counsels “patience” on Uganda’s anti-gay law

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…imprisonment in crafting a new law on homosexuality. There is American and European influence in Uganda, Anglican bishop David Zac Niringiye told Christianity Today. The liberationist sexual politics exported from the West are the true cultural imperialism. Indeed, the member of Parliament who introduced the bill hopes that Uganda will lead the world in fighting moral decadence. So, working to block this bill is both racist and imperialist, as Wes…

The Bible Is Not a Diet Plan

By Rob Goodman

…“boring!” Or consider the words of another megapastor, Joel Osteen, in his bestselling Your Best Life Now: “If you are struggling financially, say something such as, ‘Father, I thank You that You’re causing me to be at the right place at the right time. You are bringing wonderful financial opportunities my way.’ If you will live with an attitude of faith, then, like the saints of old, before long God’s favor is going to show up, and that situation…

Jewish Past/Israeli Future: A Review of The Invention of the Jewish People

By Shalom Goldman

…where it was published soon after it appeared in Israel, the book became a bestseller. Sand was given the Prix Aujourd’hui—a prestigious literary prize awarded to the best nonfiction book of the year. As French history is Sand’s field, and he is thoroughly at home in French language and culture, his television and radio appearances were quite successful. But the French Jewish establishment was quite critical of the book. From Brooklyn to Jerusalem…

Of Gods and Men Resurrects Martyrdom

By Nathan Schneider

…doah River in Virginia. We’re told that the film did well at Cannes and in European box offices, and that it’s now even drawing crowds in US cities. The excitement is palpable, if subtle. A burned DVD copy is discreetly circulating and being watched on little screens with headphones, and reviews cut out from newspapers appear on the bulletin board, surrounded by exclamation points. Some of the monks here met Father Christian. One has a picture of…

How New Religions Are Made

By Jacob S. Dorman

…ral European occult practices, and freemasonry. Although Matthew tried his best to hide this religious bricolage, his papers offer a rare opportunity to see how new religions are made. Is there anything you had to leave out? Tons. I came to see Black Israelites as being very closely related to Black Muslims. Not only was there overlap between the groups’ memberships, but it was not uncommon for groups to blend elements of both Judaism and Islam in…

A Long History of Blaming the Jews

By Gordon Haber

…k for the political status of Jews a millennium later. In the Middle Ages, European monarchs “insisted that the Jews belonged to them in a peculiar way, different from that of their other subjects” (emphasis Nirenberg’s). Thus the king could use the Jews as tax collectors and moneylenders, and in both cases get his hands on most of the cash. In thirteenth century England, for example, King Henry III taxed Jewish moneylenders so heavily that they h…

Papal Profanity: The Vatican’s Pagan Museum

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…nd repatriation are the new buzzwords in American museums, and some of our best museums (the Getty, the Metropolitan, the Cleveland Museum, the Princeton Museum) were recently forced to send a lot of Greek works of art back, not to Greece, but to Rome. It’s all a bit bewildering, but fascinating at the same time. Which leads me to a second project, a book about the Greek island of Crete where I excavated for five years. I want to use Cretan hist…