…nd Jews joined together in the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, the fair housing movement, the nuclear freeze movement, and various other demands for peace and justice. In this era, conservative people of faith largely lacked a unified political voice, in part by choice; evangelical Protestants for decades embraced the view that politics is a sinful realm best avoided by people whose primary focus is on eternal salvation. (And…
…nst the death penalty, and Vatican financial dealings are obscured by the smoke and solemnity. We learn more from the press about the Pope’s red Prada shoes and designer sunglasses than about his criticism of the Iraq war. This time around in Washington DC and New York City, we hear about the “Pope-Soap-On-A-Rope” but not the people who work in Catholic schools for low wages. We see T-shirts for papal teddy bears, but no hint of the impact of the…
…1 there have been a couple of individuals that have been spending a lot of money to cull through tapes and videos of conferences and TV programs and the Internet to look for information that is critical of Muslims and Muslim-Americans getting involved in public policy. They compile that into a guilt-by-association Powerpoint and then shop it to reporters.” These individuals include, said Khan, Frank Gaffney, who issues baseless warnings to members…
…to register as nonprofit organizations. India: Mother places same-sex matrimonial ad Padma Iyer, a mother in India, garnered international attention when she placed the first same-sex “matrimonial ad” seeking a husband for her son. Some major papers turned down the ad, but Mumbai tabloid Mid-Day agreed to run it. Same-sex relationships have been illegal since a 2013 high court ruling reinstated a colonial-era sodomy law. Said Iyer, “How are the co…
…% of respondents to a 2018 YouGov poll said that interracial marriage was “morally wrong.” Discrimination on the basis of race is prohibited by federal statute, and states are explicitly prohibited by federal case law from banning marriage for interracial and same-sex couples. But, with conservative Christian legislators, litigators (like the Alliance Defending Freedom, who drafted Mississippi’s anti-LGBT statute), and judges growing in power and…
…ories in differing political orders. This realization has led us to pose a number of crucial questions to those engaged in the promotion of religious freedom as a stable and singular human right. These questions, explored in detail in the PoRF volume and our other publications, and underlying my own public interventions on these issues, include: What happens when religious freedom is imagined only through the lexicon of liberal rights as a set of…
…critique is that today’s Israel is less an offshoot of ancient history and more a modern project made possible by Western European empires. Without the direct relevance of the Bible, that’s harder to deny. Yet surprisingly, even among many Jews absolutely committed to the continuing relevance of the Bible the idea of humans starting a state in Israel was long considered destructive—even blasphemous. Israel Prize winner and Hebrew University Jewish…
By Randall Balmer, Anthea Butler, Evan Derkacz, Jeff Sharlet, and Diane Winston
…ild up and centralize itself. This type of totalizing perspective seems common to most religious systems. Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and even early Christianity teach a way of life that does not compartmentalize but which seeks power (intentionality, obedience, service and control) for God. The “genius” of the Protestant Revolution was to break apart this unitary system and its divine focus, substituting it with spheres of influence (with greater or…
…od and never-before publicly seen footage from Pastor John Hagee’s now-infamous ‘God Sent Hitler’ 2005 sermon, in which Hagee pantomimes a Nazi holding a rifle pointed at Jews. ++++++++++ Hagee Hears a Who-madgeddon For the few gifted enough to retain information beyond the 24/7 news cycle, you will have no trouble remembering Pastor John Hagee. The head of San Antonio’s 19,000-member Cornerstone Church was riding high; his multimillion-dollar med…
…linic protest last April that denounced the “black genocide” of abortion. Among the most prominent names in the movement are Day Gardner, of the National Black Pro-Life Union; Rev. Clenard Childress and Johnny Hunter of the group Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN, at the Web site Black Genocide.org); and Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King. King, the media darling of the bunch, addressed the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’…
